long term care insurance

• Organic cognitive disabilities such as Alzheimer's disease.
• Nursing home care including all services such as personal aid care, nursing care and physical therapy.
• Adult daycare services, assisted living services and alternate methods of care.

Although long term care insurance covers a great deal, it DOES NOT cover:

• Mental and nervous disorders along with alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.
• Preexisting conditions.

In general, long term care policies include what is referred to as "pooled benefits," which is basically a set dollar amount that may be utilized for different long term care services. This dollar amount can be broken down into daily, weekly or monthly limits, such as a daily range of $50-$300 for nursing home care services. Once the limit is exceeded on a given day, week or month, the individual is responsible for the extra costs. The following table provides an example of a long term care insurance plan.

1999 Long-Term Care Policy			$100 per day benefit for 4 years			Same Policy with Inflation Feature
			50 year-old	65 year-old	79 year-old	50 year-old	65 year-old	79 year-old
Cost per year			$409	$1,002	$4,166	$881	$1,802	$5,895