The risks of a long-term illness and its treatment consuming your life savings is so great in modern America that even notoriously anti-insurance financial gurus like Dave Ramsey recommend carrying long-term care insurance. These policies can be expensive, but are much less expensive than going without. As with any other insurance policy, to get the best deal you must do diligent research into the available options and reputations of potential providers.
Instructions
1. Consult your family medical history. Although everybody should have some degree of long-term care insurance, you should carry more if you have a family history of protracted final illnesses.
2. Total your current debt, including your mortgage. A long-term illness can compromise your ability to work. Consider a term life policy for the current amount of your debt, running for the term you estimate it will take you to become debt-free. You can buy policies that reduce in value to approximate your lowering debt, at a lower cost to reflect the declining payoff.
3. Talk with your insurance agent about long-term care insurance. The laws and practices of this industry change frequently, and an agent you already work with and trust is the best source of the most current information. He will also be likely to get you a discount for carrying multiple policies with his company.
4. Get quotes for long-term care insurance from at least two providers other than your existing agent. They may or may not be able to offer a better deal on a comparable policy.
5. Compare the policies on the following factors: premium cost, waiting period, daily maximum payment, total maximum payment, deductible amount and copayment amounts. Not all policies have all of these factors, but they are each worth noting.
6. Investigate the reputation of the competing bidders. When you need the insurance to pay is the worst possible time to find out a provider does not maintain its end of the deal.
7. Fill out the applicable paperwork and make regular payments on your policy to keep it fully up-to-date and in force.
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