How many on this site have this type of insurance?
We bought a policy several years ago, reading the fine print to qualify you must not be able to perform 2 out of 6 activites of daily living. It looks like to me they have to be pretty bad off if they need help with feeding, that does not mean preparing the meal or buying the groceries. I am wondering would I be better off cashing the policy in. I think I can get $50k back. It pays $2500.00 per month for nursing home or home health care. You have to pay out of pocket for 60 days before the policy payes out, but it will pay for the life time of the person.
moorsb - If I had a LTC policy, I would not dream of cashing it in. I also would not need it now but may next year. Things can progress very rapidly. I think Medicare takes care of the first 60 days.
moorsb-our LTC policy paid out $31,000 last year alone. This is our third year of service. I do not pay premiums for my husband while he is a benificiary. Do the math-keep it!!!
moorsb, does your policy spell out what those 6 activities of daily living are?
It took my now 83 year old wife seven years to progress from diagnosis to her present stage 6c, where she requires assistance with walking, toileting, bathing, dressing, and pill taking. She can still feed herself, very awkwardly and messily, but sometimes needs reminders. But it sounds like your wife may be progressing faster than that if she's already beginning to take small steps in walking, etc. -- something that my wife hadn't begun experiencing until about a year ago. Up until that point, she was still capable of doing just about everything for herself except for taking pills and selecting appropriate clothes to wear.
At your young age and now burning through your savings as you care for your wife at home, it looks to me like you may be forced to go back to work long before your AD journey is over, in which case the $2500/month available from the policy could certainly help pay for professional care for your wife, either in home or at a nursing home. As to the possible alternative of cashing out of the policy now for $50K, I wouldn't know how to advise you on that -- it could perhaps allow you to spend another year with your wife before being forced to go back to work, but then what? There's just no reliable basis for predicting how long this journey may last.
We don't have any sort of long term care insurance, but fortunately our savings are still pretty much intact and, being retired and with an unmarried son who has moved back in with us to help, we expect to be able to continue caring for my wife at home unless/until it becomes medically neccessary to place her.
I think it's admirable that you've been willing to suspend your life and work to care for your wife, and I'm just sorry that you find yourself having to face these difficult care decisions.
With any terminal disease i would want to hang on to the LTC policy. she may advance quite suddenly and you will want and need to get back to work. 50k isnt much when you talk of Nursing home or private costs. be glad you have it! i wish i'd had one now.Divvi
Several years ago an insurance agent tried to get me to buy LTC for both of us. After filling out the paper work, my wife was accepted, but I was rejected (because I had just been hospitalized for an infected foot). This made me mad, so I said I wouldn't accept the policy for my wife unless they would also cover me. They then agreed to cover me, but by then I was fed up with the whole thing so rejected both policies. I wish now someone had talked me into taking the policies. At the time I felt we had enough in our retirement fund to cover any eventuality. That was before the stock market crash. Now things are different.
We are in the middle of "claiming" on our LTC policy, it's through State Farm, so I'll let you all know how it goes. The way I read it, one option is those ADL questions, all of which my DH can do just fine. BUT, the option 2 for the doctor to check is "needs supervision". Because his dementia sometimes is like AD and othertimes more like FTD, my doctor is coming to the conclusion (me too) that he needs supervision almost all the time, even though his ADLs may be okay. So, we're going for our annual neurology appt. in March and the doctor says she'll fill out the paperwork. Right now, I leave for my office mid-morning once I feel like he's having a fairly good day, and I have a parttime caregiver come @ 1:30, and she stays until I get home----which is sometimes pretty late since we have a senior in high school so I go to her activities, etc. So he's only alone for 2-3 hours in the morning, and seems to do fine, but I worry. My office has let me rearrange my schedule until we figure all this out......I'm young (52) so I need to work for the money, the medical insurance, not to mention it keeps me sane! FYI, my State Farm agent is encouraging me to claim against the policy and very supportive, but my one conversation with the claims person was discouraging. Her comments were things like "well, if you leave him alone at all, he doesn't really need supervision, does he?" She also seemed suspect because my caregiver who is through an agency is not a "nurse"....well, my DH doesn't need a nurse, he needs a companion! Anyway, after we fill out the paperwork (I fill out some, the agency does some, and then my DH doctor), I'll let you know how it goes. BUT, we are very thankful we have it. It looks like it's easy to claim if you are actually in a facility, but my DH may be a long ways from a facility, so my agent said I might as well file now, because our policy has no lifetime cap.
You mentioned LTC insurance on another thread and I responded, but here's a summary: What Texasmom said above about needing supervision is another way to qualify for benefits. When cognitive impairment is present, the doctor certifies that for safety, the person must have supervision at all times. My husband does all ADL's himself and yet the insurance has been paying for adult daycare for over 2 years. Since his policy has no lifetime cap on money or time, it is to our advantage to use it as early as possible (and the way it is set up, I stopped paying for it when benefits started). As others have said, the policy is worth much more than $50k. My husband's policy also covers the cost of modifications to our home for his benefit. You really need to read and understand the policy completely, and call the company if you're not sure.
moorsb---our policy is a little different from marilynMD in that if we qualify for at home care, we still pay premiums, but once he goes into a facility, premiums are waived. but my agent and I have done the math....worth every penny, particularly because we have no lifetime cap and we have a cost-of-living adjustment (the latter I think is pretty common).
I almost cancelled our LTC policy because of the high cost. If I had I would have lost everything I worked my whole life for. As Bill is healthy physically he could be using it for many years. Though he is at end stage he is very stable. He will turn blue and be ice cold and unable to swollow one day and reverse the next. When he bounces back it is never as "good" as he was before the event.
We have just filed claims for my DH's LTC insurance which if we did not have it, we would be destitute in 5 years even though we have saved a significant amount of money for retirement (which is now cut in half due to stock market). His policy has a daily limit for home care which must be provided by a licensed agency and the policy requires that he needs assistance with 2 ADL's. It also has a monetary cap, which equates to coverage for 5 years. Like the others, I would recommend keeping the LTC insurance because you never know how quickly you will need it when things get bad. His policy pays more for care in a facility which just about covers the full cost of a facility; unfortunately the home care amount is half, so we have about $500/week coming out of our savings. Gets very expensive, very quickly. Due to DH's age (58) he does not yet have Medicare coverage and our private medical insurance has refused to pay for acute care in psych hospital because they have deemed that he was not a danger to himself or others. In less than 6 months we've had $100,000 of combined medical and home care expenses with no end in sight. Keep the policy - it will be worth every penny when you need to use it.
I looked closer at the policy and it does have a statement about cognitive impairment. I was thinking I would not get my money worth if you have to be on your death bed before it will start paying. The policy will continue to pay as long as she needs it. I have to pay for 60 days out of pocket within a 6 month window before the policy will pickup also. I am thinking, when the time comes I can get some one for half a day say every other day and meet the requirements for 60 days of coverage. I am planning on going back to work problably later this year.
I am also trying to decide whether to keep my husband's LTC insurance. I received notice yesterday that his company will no longer provide any portion of our insurance, so we want to have insurance we will being paying the entire amount. His LTC only pays $35.00 a day. Really don't know what I should do.
I checked about a month ago, I was told it covered $35.00 a day. Maybe since it was through his company it is different??? We are to receive information regarding insurance choice at the end of the month. We need to make a decision by March 27th. No insurance after March 31st.
I am hoping the retirement checks keep coming...even though the insurance will take most of it. I am trying to think of a bright side...we did have great insurance for 36 years, when some people have never had any.
I agree with bluedaze on the amount payable per day--$35 seems very low. If you have had the coverage for 36 years, is it possible that was the rate back then? If you have an inflation protection rider, the amount goes up each year. Are you sure the person you checked with is knowledgeable? The policy should state whether there is inflation protection. LTC insurance is more complicated than other types of insurance, I have found.
Kadee I had to jump through hoops before our LTC kicked in. Ours has an inflation rider and no cap. Still every time I get an envelope with Genworth on it my heart skips a beat. Something else that took some doing was getting the facility to bill Genworth direct. The facility bills for the upcoming month and Genworth bills for past service. Now I have it set up where they fax each other and I get a paid statement. Something is actually going right!
I have a question about LTC. My son is about to become 50, and both his father and his father's father have had AD. I'd like to suggest that he might consider getting LTC now while he's pretty young. Sunshyne, I know you say there's no evidence of inheritance except for EOAD, but I sure have known a lot of families it's "run" in. But what should he look for? I would think "endless" would be good. And "big payout" would be good. ;-) But he has a daughter who'll need to go to college in a few years...
briegull-the earlier your son gets LTC the less expensive it will be. Things I considered were: no cap on benifits (some have a 3 year cap), inflation factor built in-what might be ok now could be a drop in the bucket later, to have home care, and most important to accept psych-might consider AD as psyche even though we know it isn't. Most important-the agent will get very friendly while he or she is really trying to seek out preexisting conditions. DO NOT EVEN MENTION OTHERS IN FAMILY HAVING AD. Genworth refuses 80% of applicants.
Once you have been diagnosed, the insurance company will not issue you a policy. The sooner you get one the less it will cost. The policy we bought 8 yrs ago was you paid a lump sum to the insurance company and in return they would issue a policy that would pay a fixed amount per month. If you wanted more you could get riders to the policy with cost of living raises. I wish I had choose that option. We were spending alot of money hoping that we would never have to use it. To keep the cost down we did not get all of the options other than a life time benefit.
Kadee, With my new job, I am given a "free" LTC policy. But it only covers a % of your salary, & that is probably the (I'm thinking) the reason for the low amount. It's not the same as purchasing a LTC policy on your own (expensive.)
Kitty--Could that be a disability policy you are talking about? Usually they cover a percentage of your salary--not the same as Long Term Care Insurance.
Does anyone know what they are looking when you trigger the policy by cognitive impairment. The form asks what test where done to evaluate it. It list Mild, Moderate and Severe Is short term memory impaired is also a question. What are the signs of cognitive impairment?
moorsb, they usually look for either dementia and the mild, moderate, severe dx which usually is provided by he physician or needs assistance with 2 or more ADLs. In either case the physician typically provides the information, however in our case they sent the questionnaire to the Home Health Care agency (don't know why) and the geriatric care manager I hired filled it out.
CommentAuthorbluedaze CommentTime17 minutes ago Brooke-we also have a LTC policy-Genworth. Does the requirment of health care worker notes specify who that worker is? Is this for home care or in a facility? Don't give up=paid too much in.
CommentAuthorBrooke CommentTime12 minutes ago bluedaze,
Sorry to tell you that our policy is with Genworth also. I will come back on line when I have more time and "read to you" the specs of our policy. This is just to get some help in the home. Later ...