Best Age to Buy long-term care (LTC) Insurance

Fox News ran a story by Robert DiGiacomo entitled “Best Age to Buy Long-Term Care Insurance?” on October 21, 2011.

Whenever I am asked about the best age to buy long-term care insurance (LTCi), I always answer that the sooner you buy, the better off you’ll be. If you are placed with the appropriate carrier and you live your predicted life expectancy, you’ll always save money by buying LTCi sooner, rather than later. The author of this article and the experts he quoted agree.

Mr. DiGiacomo’s article gives the mathematical explanation of why this is true.

The story also correctly points out that the older you get, the more difficult it may be to qualify for LTCi.

But Mr. DiGiacomo left out another crucial reason to buy LTCi as soon as you can. Every few years, LTCi carriers retire their current plan and replace it with their next generation plan. Generally, this newer plan is more or less the same as the prior plan; it just costs more for comparable benefits. There is nothing about the prior, older plan that is obsolete or is less desirable than the new plan in any way.