FYI: To learn more about the ins and outs of these types of policies, check out our guide to long-term care insurance.
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With the cost of care at an all-time high, a long-term care insurance policy can help you pay for assisted living, nursing homes, or other care — in either your home or a facility. The best long-term care insurance providers offer late issue ages, additional riders, discounts for couples, and flexible premium payment options. Some providers even eliminate waiting periods.
FYI: To learn more about the ins and outs of these types of policies, check out our guide to long-term care insurance.
To evaluate long-term care insurers, we examined the following criteria:
Policies offered: MutualCare Secure Solution, MutualCare Custom Solution
A.M. Best rating: A+ (Superior)
Monthly premium: $225 for a monthly benefit amount of $3,100 in California
Coverage limit: $500,000
Founded in 1909, Mutual of Omaha offers a variety of insurance products, ranging from long-term insurance to accidental death insurance. With strong financial ratings from A.M. Best, Moody’s, and S&P Global, Mutual of Omaha is the preferred choice for many older adults due to its late issue ages for long-term care insurance policies.
Mutual of Omaha offers two long-term care insurance policies: MutualCare Secure Solution and MutualCare Custom Solution. With MutualCare Secure Solution, you can receive traditional benefits for long-term care. Issued to people up to age 79, the policy provides maximum monthly benefits of up to $10,000, including inflation-protection options. If you have a spouse who needs coverage, then you can choose optional shared care coverage.
Mutual of Omaha’s other policy option, MutualCare Custom Solution, offers cash benefits with no elimination periods. It also offers the option of shared care with your partner if one of you runs out of care coverage. Benefits are paid in two ways: reimbursement up to the maximum monthly benefit of your policy or cash payment up to 40 percent of the policy’s maximum monthly home health care benefit.
As a stable and secure insurance provider with over a century of experience, Mutual of Omaha helps seniors protect their savings and retirement assets. One of the downsides, however, is that its traditional long-term insurance policy doesn’t offer partner benefits such as a survivorship benefit or a joint waiver of premium. You’d have to upgrade to MutualCare Custom Solution to get additional customized partner benefits.
Policies offered: Long-Term Care Insurance Policy (traditional), Asset Flex, and NYL Secure Care
A.M. Best rating: A++ (Superior)
Cost: Starting at $166 per month
Coverage limit: $250,000
Founded in 1845, New York Life has a history of financial strength and a robust insurance portfolio. New York Life was one of the first leading insurance companies to offer policies to women at equal premium rates to men.
New York Life offers traditional long-term care insurance in addition to the flexibility of combination long-term care and life insurance with a money-back guarantee. Other perks of the company’s long-term care policies include coverage for care for up to seven years and a residual benefit to your beneficiaries even if you use all your long-term care benefits.
One of the downsides of New York Life is that it has high premium rates that may not be affordable for people on a limited budget.
To learn more about this provider, read our guide to New York Life long-term care insurance.
Policies offered: Nationwide YourLife CareMatters, Long-Term Care Rider
A.M. Best rating: A+ (Superior)
Cost: Contact agent
Coverage limit: $750,000
With over 90 years of experience, Nationwide is one of the largest insurance and financial-services companies. Formerly known as Farm Bureau Automobile Insurance Company, it sold its first policy in 1926.
Known for its linked-benefit long-term care insurance policies, Nationwide guarantees that its premiums will not increase. A linked-benefit long-term care insurance policy is intended for older adults who don’t think they will use much of their life insurance coverage, and it provides long-term care insurance coverage.
Beneficiaries will receive a death benefit even if the long-term care benefits are used up. With the linked long-term care policy, Nationwide offers benefit payments via reimbursement or an indemnity-style policy that provides policy owners with the full monthly amount for long-term care benefits.
In addition to long-term care policies, Nationwide offers optional long-term care riders that provide benefits for home health care, assisted living, nursing homes, adult day care, and other long-term care needs. Nationwide long-term care policies also have high maximum long-term care coverage amounts of up to $750,000 for three-, five-, and seven-year benefit periods.
To learn more about Nationwide, read our guide to Nationwide long-term care insurance.
Policies offered: John Hancock Long-Term Care Rider
A.M. Best rating: A++
Cost: Contact agent
Coverage limit: $50,000 maximum monthly benefit amount
Founded in 1922 by Army officers, USAA offers insurance, banking, and investing products and solutions to members of the military and their families. With professional military affiliations, excellent customer service, and an A++ financial-strength rating from A.M. Best, USAA has a net worth of $40 billion.
USAA has stopped issuing new long-term care insurance policies, but it recommends reaching out to insurance companies such as John Hancock, Genworth, C.N.A., MetLife, and Fortis if you purchased a long-term care policy through USAA before 2018.
A representative shared that USAA offers a long-term care policy rider through John Hancock. The John Hancock USAA Long-Term Care Rider helps policyholders pay for their long-term care expenses for in-home care, adult day care, or care in an assisted living facility or nursing home. With issue ages of 20 and 75, the long-term care rider has a 90-day elimination period to satisfy before receiving long-term care benefits.
Since the long-term care rider is an accelerated death benefit rider, individuals can receive a maximum monthly benefit amount of $50,000 toward long-term care needs. One of the benefits of choosing a long-term care rider through John Hancock is that it has paid more than $13 billion in long-term care benefits.
To learn more about this provider, read our guide to USAA long-term care insurance.
Policies offered: Comprehensive Long-Term Care Insurance Policy, Privileged Choice Flex 3, and Privileged Choice Flex
A.M. Best rating: B (Fair)
Cost: Contact agent
Coverage limit: $9,000 monthly maximum
For the past 145 years, Genworth has offered a variety of resources for aging adults. Some of its products include long-term care insurance, mortgage insurance, and annuities. Genworth currently is in the process of making a long-term care market comeback. Its financial-strength ratings are not as good as other providers’, but Genworth is still a great contender for long-term care coverage.
In the past, Genworth has offered a comprehensive long-term care insurance policy that provides a 30-day free-look period that gives customers the chance to review and try it with a money-back guarantee. The company’s long-term care insurance policy offers optional benefits such as shared coverage riders that guarantee at least 50 percent of original individual coverage for your spouse or partner even if the long-term care coverage maximum has been used.
Insured applicants also have several inflation options to choose from. They can opt for compound benefit increases, simple benefit increases, or future purchase options to protect long-term care coverage benefits.
To learn more about this provider, read our guide to Genworth long-term care insurance.
Policies offered: Pacific PremierCare Advantage, Pacific PremierCare Choice 100, and Pacific PremierCare Choice Multi-Pay 100
A.M. Best rating: A+ (Superior)
Cost: $250 per month
Coverage limit: $750,000
With over 150 years of insurance experience under its belt, Pacific Life offers annuities, life insurance, and mutual funds to help its customers protect long-term investments and leave a legacy behind. The provider has maintained high financial-strength ratings by independent rating agencies such as A.M. Best and S&P Global, with A+ and AA- ratings, respectively.
Pacific life offers hybrid policies — life insurance policies that include coverage for long-term care. The Pacific PremierCare Advantage is universal life insurance that comes with long-term care benefits. It provides death proceeds that are paid out to beneficiaries, a choice of two- to eight-year benefit periods, and an inflation benefit to protect your long-term care.
Pacific Life also offers a terminal illness benefit that provides a prepayment of up to 75 percent of the policy’s death benefit if you become terminally ill, as long as it doesn’t exceed a maximum of $500,000.
One of the downsides of the provider, however, is that it doesn’t sell stand-alone long-term care insurance policies and it has discontinued new sales of some of its life insurance products.
To learn more about Pacific Life, read our guide to Pacific Life long-term care insurance.
To get started on finding a long-term care insurance policy, we recommend making a list of your top providers. From there, you can obtain online quotes and speak to an agent to obtain one.
To learn more about long-term care insurance, read our helpful guides.
Long-term care insurance helps pay for services (both in-home and community-based) that assist with activities of daily living. It helps offset the costs of care administered both at home and in senior-care communities.
Assuming you’re still in good health, the ideal age to purchase long-term care insurance is between 60 and 65. Many insurers don’t issue policies to people older than 70.
If you need assistance with activities of daily living or if you have a condition such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or cancer, a provider may deny you coverage. It varies by insurer.
To figure out how much long-term care coverage you need, look into the type of care you anticipate needing, whether it’s a nursing home, assisted living community, or home care services. Calculate how much the services will cost per month to get roughly the coverage amount you want.
Since a majority of older adults will need long-term care at some point, most people will benefit from long-term care policies.
