With the frightening price of long term care insurance making people less likely to invest in their future, insurance companies are finding way to make this care more affordable. One way they are achieving this is by making a long term care insurance rider to go with a life insurance plan.
Insurance companies are now offering a long term care rider on term life, whole life and universal life policies. Once you reach a stage where you need to access the benefits afforded by this rider, the insurer allows you to accelerate the death benefits of the policy. These benefits can be used for in home care, assisted living or skilled care, allowing you to stay where you are most comfortable. In most cases, the insured is able to also pick their caregiver, including a family member.
In order to access the long term care rider, most insurance companies will require that the insured is either cognitively impaired or needs assistance in performing two out of the six daily living activities. These include:
- Eating
- Dressing
- Bathing
- Transferring
- Toileting
- Continence
With the major benefit to this type of strategy being the ability for the insured to make the choices in their own care with regard to where they receive the care and by whom, it is also beneficial to know that if you end up never needing to use long term care benefits, most plans will pay out a tax free death benefit to the insured’s beneficiaries.
