2/1/2011

Planning how to pay for the care you might need if you become ill or disabled as you age is a daunting task. It's not the sort of thing we even want to think about. Yet studies estimate that 35 percent to 50 percent of 65-year-olds will probably need nursing-home care in the future. The average annual cost for a private room in a nursing home is about $79,935, according to MetLife's 2009 Market Survey of Long-Term Care Costs. The average nursing-home resident moves in at age 83 and stays two to three years. You might be motivated to buy one of the few insurance products on the market that promise to help pay for assistance: long-term-care insurance. But only about 7 million policies are in force, according to LIMRA, an insurance research and consulting group. That's less than 5 percent of the possible market. To read the full article, go here: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/retirement-planning/ways-to-pay-for-long-term-care/overview/index.htm