What is Long-Term Care Insurance?
Long-Term Care provides for the day-in, day-out assistance you need when a serious illness or disability renders you unable, physically or cognitively, to care for yourself for a lengthy period of time. Long term care can be provided at home, or at nursing, assisted living, or alternate care facilities.

Is Long-Term Care insurance right for you?
-Take a second to consider the following statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

• 60% of people over age 65 will require long term care during their lifetime.
  (Washington Post, April, 1996)
  
• Medicare and Medicaid will pay only a fraction of the costs of long term care.
  (Department of Health and Human Services, 1991)
  
• The average cost of nursing home care is about $100 per day. The average stay is 2½ years, which translates to a total cost of about $100,000 per stay.
  (Department of Health and Human Services, 1991)
  
• The average individual can spend up to $50,000 for long term care expenses.
  (Department of Health and Human Services, 1991)

Purchasing a long term care insurance plan represents an important step towards securing peace of mind and financial security in these important years of your life. Your policy should provide you with the maximum protection against the potentially catastrophic costs of long-term healthcare while enabling you to help preserve your resources.

Do you need the coverage?
A 1996 study shows that 60% of people over age 65 will require long term care during their lifetime. Statistics show that 7 out of 10 married couples will be affected by long term care needs. (Source-U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1991)
In our opinion, these odds indicate a strong likelihood that you will benefit from a long term care plan. Here are some issues to consider when evaluating long term care plans:

Do you need home and community-based care insurance?
The cost of home care may be greater than the cost of nursing home care if you require around-the-clock services. The question you need to answer:

• Do you have a support system such as your family to help you? Home health care insurance pays for intermittent services - usually provided at 8 hour intervals - if the primary care-giver, usually a spouse or child, can provide care for the other 16 hours.
  
• Can you afford a Long Term Care insurance plan?
  Perhaps the better question is whether you can afford not to, as shown above.
  According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the average cost of nursing home care in the United States is about $100 per day, and the average stay is about 2½ years. This translates to a total cost of about $100,000 per stay.
  
  Home Health Care costs can vary greatly depending on the type of care you receive. They can be even more expensive than nursing home care. More and more people are using home health care rather than going into a nursing home for short duration convalescence.
  Long term care insurance can prevent you from having to face the prospects of covering these expenses with assets which you've worked a lifetime to acquire.

What protection is needed?
With the possible financial risk of not having coverage, long term care affordability is a matter of fitting the premiums into your budget. Choosing from a variety of LTCI plans, and personalizing the plan you choose by manipulating the plan parameters, yields a large degree of flexibility where your cost is concerned. The following parameters play a key role in determining the cost for your coverage:

• Benefit Period
• Daily Benefit
• Elimination Period (Waiting Period)
• Home Health Care Protection
• Inflation Protection
  

Long Term Care for business
When your employees are forced to care for dependents, who's left minding the store? Americans are living longer than ever before and more and more are faced with the financial and emotional hardships that long term care brings. That means employees like yours are trapped in the tug of war between the conflicting roles of caregiver and dedicated employee. The impact of this issue is gaining significance particularly among closely held corporations such as yours. Small business's can ill-afford losing their employees to care-giving responsibilities. Eighty percent of long term care is provided at home by family members, therefore they often need time away from work. That time translates into millions of dollars paid in sick leave. (HIAA "Consumer's Guide to Long Term Care, 1996")

A tax advantage
The passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 had a message from Congress and it was clear: long term care is the responsibility of individuals and their employers.

The upside of that mandate is that tax-qualified long term care insurance is now treated like other types of health insurance. Premiums are tax deductible. Benefits are tax free. So, this plan not only gives your business a potentially attractive tax advantage. Put simply, long term care insurance policy is a great employee benefit that makes good, long term business sense.

The benefits to a C-Corporation include:

• 100% deduction of your contribution to your employees' LTC premium
• 100% deduction of your personal LTC premium, as well as for your spouse and dependents
• No cap on the premium deduction-you can contribute to the premium for as many of your employees as you choose
• You need not offer the LTC benefit to all of your employees- it's your decision
• Benefits are tax free to the employees - even when you, the employer, deduct the premium.

  Disability Insurance carriers offered, Met Life, Mass Mutual, Guardian, Fidelity Security

  Long Term Care Insurance carriers include, Met Life, GE Capital Assurance, John Hancock Financial, Lincoln Benefit Life, Prudential - Long Term Care