Did you know that neither your health insurance nor Medicare would pay for extended long-term care services in the event that you needed them in the future?
If you develop a chronic illness or become disabled and can no longer care for yourself for an extended period of time, you’ll need long-term care services.
And they aren’t cheap.
The median cost for a home-health aide for an eight-hour day is more than $44,000 a year, while nursing care in a facility with a private room has a median cost of almost $84,000 a year.1 As life expectancies increase, so does the duration of long-term care needs, and the financial burden may end up falling on your loved ones after you’ve run through your own life savings.
This section will explain what you need to know about long-term care insurance and offers tips on where to buy it and the best time to do so. There’s also an interactive map to help you get a sense of what long-term care services cost in your area.