Care Settings:
There are 3 main types of policies:
1. Home Healthcare Only
2. Facility Care Only
3. Comprehensive (this is a combination of the two).
Home Health Care Coverage, for example, means you receive insurance benefits covering in-home care services provided by a licensed or registered practice nurse or therapist. Respite Care guarantees a facility will offer some help about one to two weeks each year to those caring for a homebound person. Adult Day Care can also help, ensuring assistance is provided during the day for recreational, therapeutic and personal care. When looking at policies, make sure the care settings are what you want and that you are comparing apples to apples.
Inflation Protection:
1. No inflation benefit - the Daily Benefit never grows. It remains the same for the life of the policy,
2. Future purchase option-you have a limited right to periodically increase your Daily Benefit. When you choose to increase your Daily Benefit , however, you do not have to prove that you're still healthy. When you choose to increase your Daily Benefit, your premium will go up because you are buying additional coverage,
3. Automatic Inflation Benefit-your Daily Benefit automatically grows each year by a certain percentage which you choose when you purchase the policy. The automatic increases in the Daily Benefit each year do not make the premium go up. There are many different types of Automatic Inflation Benefit. The most common are 5% Compound, 5% Simple and 3% Compound. .
Daily Benefit:
How much will the policy pay for each day that you receive qualified care? When comparing policies, make sure you understand how much of the Daily Benefit is available for each care setting. Some policies may pay a smaller percentage of the Daily Benefit for care that is received at home or in an assisted living facility.
Benefit Period:
How long is the policy designed to pay benefits while you qualify to receive benefits? It is sometimes described in terms of dollars or "pool of money", sometimes in terms of years, and sometimes in terms of days. It is similar to, and sometimes referred to as, the "Lifetime Maximum Benefit". The most commonly offered Benefit Periods are 3 years, 5 years, or Lifetime/Unlimited. A 3-year Benefit Period means that if you use up all your Daily Benefit each day, your policy would run out of benefits after you've been on claim for 3 years. A Lifetime/Unlimited Benefit Period means that the policy could never run out of benefit.
Elimination Period:
This is similar to a deductible and is called the "Elimination Period". It is the number of days that you receive qualified care before the policy will start to pay benefits. As with any insurance policy, the higher the deductible, the lower your premium. The most common Elimination Periods that are offered are 30, 60, or 90 days.