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The Fine Print in Long Term Care Policies Means a Lot By Dan Casey, published in “Senior Living News” April, 2003 Before purchasing long term care insurance, it’s important that you make a comparison (or consult an agent who can do that for you). The fine print in policies can make a big difference in the benefits you select. Let’s look. It’s common for policies to define your maximum payment as a daily benefit. If you select $120 per day as your benefit, that’s the most you can receive for a day of care. You receive the lesser of your actual expense or your daily benefit for the policy. Let’s say on Monday, you have someone go to the supermarket for you and your policy covers that. The cost is $20 and the policy will pay $20. The next day, you have 8 hours of care and the cost is $200. You will receive a maximum of $120 per your policy. Each day is measured by itself. Some policies, however, measure the benefit per week. Rather than state the benefit as $120 per day, the benefit is stated as $800 per week. By using a weekly measure, you can spend various amounts each day and if the total qualifying expenses for the week is less than $800, you will receive reimbursement for all of your expenses that qualify under the policy. Another issue is how the policy counts the waiting period or “elimination period”—the number of days you must pay for care before the policy starts paying. Some policies start counting the first day you pay for care and even if you get care just once per week, each day is counted from the first day. Other polices count only the days you actually pay for care. So if you get care only one day per week, it would take 90 weeks (assuming a 90 day elimination period) until the policy would pay. You’ve got to read the fine print or find someone who knows the pros and cons of polices and their features. If you have been considering such insurance, please contact us before proceeding so that you get the comparison you deserve.