Not everyone can qualify for long term care insurance because most insurance companies impose strict rules to filter out only the deserving ones. Health and financial qualifications are important keys to getting LTC insurance coverage.
Medical Qualifications
Most long term care insurance relies on medical underwriting as the basis whether the person will qualify or not. The company looks at the person's past medical records not just the present health condition.
The following guidelines are assessed to know if you might qualify for coverage.
- A person should be able to do any basic activities of daily living (ADL) such as eating, dressing, and walking.
- A person should be able to perform without help from another individual or mechanic device like wheelchair or walker.
- A person should manifest clear memory regardless of age
- If a person has had medical condition, it should not be severe and it should be well controlled.
Below are the some of the conditions might affect your eligibility:
- AIDS
- ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease)
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Cirrhosis of the liver
- Dementia
- Diabetes under treatment with insulin
- Diabetes Type II and heart problems
- Frequent or persistent forgetfulness
- HIV
- Memory loss
- Metastatic cancer (spread from original site/location)
- Multiple sclerosis (MS)
- Muscular dystrophy
- Organic brain syndrome
- Parkinson's disease
- Senility
- Stroke
However, the LTC underwriters will look at the overall health of the person because there might be outward conditions that a person possesses that are not included in the guidelines.
If you have diabetes, hypertension, and high-blood pressure, you should check if you will qualify before your health problem becomes worse and you no longer qualify for coverage.There's no doubt that lots of applicants are rejected for coverage due to health problems. That is why it is advised to get insurance coverage at early age to ensure good health and lock in fixed premiums.
Your health change and insurance companies have nothing to with that; insurance companies can just help you plan for your future care.
Financial Qualifications
For low-income groups, they would normally rely on Medicaid or Medicare for financial assistance. People with high income and total assets may opt to self insure even if care costs $500,000. For many people who have no idea on how burdensome the cost of long term care today may compromise their health to save their assets from skyrocketing rates of care. Those who fail to plan for retirement and save for future care lose half or entire finances and become impoverished.
The financial guidelines in determining if the person is financially fit depends largely on the benefits he/she wants to receive, income, assets, health history, and family history. For example, a 55 –year-old is in good health but her family has history of dementia want to receive care for about 5-10 years. A 4 – 6 year policy may benefit her.
The reason why financial capacity is being determined is to protect the nest egg that a person has kept. The nest egg is your income for retirement.
Qualifying for Long Term Care Insurance