Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Long-Term Care Insurance Elimination Period Explained and the Different Types

The Elimination Period is one of the core benefits of a long-term care insurance policy, it is much like the deductible on your auto or homeowners insurance. The only difference is instead of paying money up front for the deductible you satisfy it with days you pay out of pocket for the own care you receive. Most long-term care insurance companies offer a 0, 30, 60, 90, 180, and sometimes a 365 day Elimination Period. The more common ones that people choose are 30 and 60 days. This means that once you go on your LTC claim - your doctor certifies that you will need care for more than 90 days due to suffering from a cognitive impairment or you are unable to perform 2 of the 6 activities of daily living - you will have to pay for your own care for the specified period of time you originally choose your Elimination Period to be before the insurance company will begin paying your long-term care insurance benefits.

However, sometimes this can be confusing and there can be a catch to Elimination Periods. The reason is, does this mean you have to be actually receiving care for each of the days (say 60 days) or does it just have to be 60 days total regardless if you are receiving care on the actual days or not. There is a difference. The long-term care insurance companies either have a Calendar Day Elimination Period or a Service Day Elimination Period. Here is an example:

Say you purchase a policy that has a 60 day Elimination Period and you receive home health care benefits for 3 days a week and you have a Service Day Elimination Period it would take you 20 weeks/5 months to satisfy your Elimination Period. If you were to have a Calendar Day Elimination Period your LTC insurance benefits would begin after 60 days, regardless of how many days a week you received and paid for your care. As you can see a Calendar Day Elimination Period is definitely the better deal.

Some long-term care insurance companies have the Calendar Day Elimination Period automatically included in their polices, others you have to pay an additional cost for this. It varies from company to company. To learn more and to see what LTC insurance companies offer this benefit in their policies visit http://www.longtermcareinsuranceonly.com/long-term-care-insurance-quote.htm and fill out the confidential form.

2 comments:

  1. I think that there could be different situations and people need to find all necessary information about the insurance plane before they choose one. The problem today is that many people do not pay much attention to their health care plan and as a result they have to pay more or even can not rely on the money of the insurance company when they need. However such elimination period can be useful for people who have not much problems with the health. Unfortunately many people rely on simple payday loan online service in Alberta with no understanding that this is just short-term assistance and you will have to return money in the short period. So it is always beneficial to have health care plan.

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  2. It's good if you have an insurance, but what if not? You can predict all the dangers waiting for you out there and get insured from everything, sometimes you have just to deal with it. In most cases when something happens and your insurance doesn't cover it you need money. If you don't have any you have to borrow it. For such cases I can recommend a very reliable company in Canada who offers Canadian payday loans online, just keep them in mind.

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