Long Term Care Insurance: What is it and How Will it Benefit You in the Future?

Planning for the future, whether by putting away savings for retirement or purchasing life insurance to help protect your loved ones, is incredibly important. Knowing what you will need for the future can be difficult, but proper and effective planning will allow you to relieve some of the stress that comes with getting older. One of the things that you can’t ignore when planning for the future is long term care and long term care insurance.

Once you have retired, you hope that your savings will be able to last and provide for you for as long as you need them to. However, this sometimes is not the case. What if your retirement planning did not plan for necessities such as long term care, either at home or, even more costly, in a long term care facility? How can you prepare for things such as this?

What is long term care insurance? Long term care insurance is a type of insurance that protects you in the case that you are no longer able to perform the types of activities that you enjoy on a regular basis, or if you require continuing supervision and care from someone.

What types of activities are included? Knowing how an insurance company assesses your ability/inability to perform your regular activities is important when contemplating purchasing long term care insurance. Things such as bathing, dressing and feeding are considered daily activities, and so if you are unable to complete these tasks without assistance, generally that is the point when an insurance company would begin to administer payments to you.

Long term care insurance plans cover all types of different services which you may require if you are no longer able to complete daily tasks on your own. These may include: in-home nursing care, therapy and rehabilitation, or personal and homecare services, such as assistance with bathing, dressing, cleaning and meal preparation.

If you and your family choose to have this care administered outside of the home, or if you choose to relocate to a live-in care facility, many of these services are also covered. This decision can be a costly one, so having long term care insurance can help alleviate many of these costs and get rid of some of the stress and tension that is unwanted in this situation.

What types of plans are offered? If you decide that long term care insurance is something that you feel is important for your future, it is a good idea to talk to an insurance advisor to discuss what options are available. Creating a customized plan allows you to take those things that are more important and leave out the things that are not.

When you plan for retirement you are often considering the costs associated with remaining in your own home and supporting yourself without the need for additional care. If however, you find yourself in a situation where these added costs are required, the impact to your retirement savings can be devastating, meaning financial strain for you and possibly your family. In order to protect those savings and have them stretch as far as you would like them to go, long term care insurance is an important consideration.

For more information on long term care insurance and its benefits, please contact Gary Mandel at Independent Financial Concepts Group at by calling 416-849-1653 or visit www.wecoveryou.ca