Statistics on long term care

Why should you get long term care insurance?
Will you really need it?
What if you never go to a long term care facility?
Wouldn't it be wasted money?

These are some of the questions asked by those
who may be considering long term care insurance.

Here are some surprising statistics if you think
that you will never use or need long term care insurance.

According to the Society of Actuaries in 1995

The odds of having a house fire with damage of at
least $3,400 is......................1 in 200
The odds of having an automobile accident with
damages of at least $3,000....1 in 14
The odds at age 65 of spending at least 2.5 years in
a long term care facility....1 in 3

Now the question is, do you have house insurance?
Do you have auto insurance?
Of course you do, it would be silly not to. You have
to protect your largest investments in case something
were to happen to them.

But these same thoughts are rarely applied when
people consider the likelihood of needing
long term care insurance at some point in their
life. Consider the fact that the cost of long term care
for one year can cost $45,000-50,000 OR MORE
and you can see why people of all ages should be
considering long term care insurance coverage.

Odds are very high that you will spend some time
in a long term care facility, the statistics above do
not account for spending less time in a long term
care environment, which would certainly be higher.

The typical scenario is that an elderly person falls ill
with cancer, diabetes, pneumonia, stroke, etc. That
person is then transferred from the hospital to a long
term care center as soon as the patient is stable. The
hospitals have incentives from insurance companies
to get a patient out of the hospital as soon as possible
so that the hospital does not have a high ALOS
(average length of stay).

This means that recoveries that are expected to only
require 2 weeks could result in a stay at a long term
care facility, and thus need long term care insurance.