WEEKEND INVESTOR --- The New Basics -- Long-Term-Care Insurance: Weighing the Alternatives
Long-term-care insurance is the financial equivalent of gum surgery: something that is often seemingly necessary, but just as often avoided at all costs.</br></br>Now, to add to its unpopularity, soaring prices are prompting consumers to rethink how much coverage they need and to experiment with other types of policies.</br></br>Long-term-care policies help pay for nursing-home, assisted-living and home care costs. In just the past year, premiums have risen by as much as 17%, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, a trade organization for insurance agents.</br></br>In one recently publicized case, an Illinois couple, Bob and Cheryl Levy, saw their combined bill jump by 90% -- to more than $7,000 annually. Given the spiraling costs, Mr. Levy decided to keep the policy, but cut back on some of the coverage to hold the premium to the same amount.</br></br>"I was not about to double my payment," he says of the increase he and wife faced.