How Long Will You Wait?

One of the determining factors of a long term care insurance (LTCI) policy’s annual premium is the variable of your long term care elimination period. The shorter it is, the higher your premium while the longer it is the smaller is your premium.

Your policy’s elimination period, which is also referred to as waiting period, is the amount of time that you are required to pay for your own long term care (LTC) expenses before you can be eligible for the benefits of your LTCI policy. Your elimination period starts from the moment that a benefit trigger occurs and ends on the day that you actually begin to receive your LTCI benefits.

An insured individual can only qualify for his LTCI policy’s benefits once he is no longer capable of performing two or more activities of daily living (ADL) such as eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, continence, and transferring without any assistance.

Sickness and accidents are usually the reasons that hinder people from functioning normally.

Your elimination period can range from 30 days to 365 days; it would really depend on what is offered by the insurance company from which you’re going to buy your policy.

Rarely is there a company these days which offers zero elimination period for an LTCI policy and this is a good thing, otherwise there would have been a myriad of Americans whose LTCI policies have lapsed by now as a result of failure to maintain their high annual premiums.

Satisfying Your Long Term Care Elimination Period

Insurance companies that sell LTCI policies have different requirements for the elimination period. Most would simply require you to satisfy your waiting period one time but there are others that require you to do so every time you make a claim.

Aside from that you also have to check the fine print of your policy for the manner of satisfying the elimination period because some companies do not apply the calendar day elimination period. This method simply requires you to pay your LTC expenses out-of-pocket within the number of days clearly specified in your policy. Meanwhile, some companies stipulate in fine print that you have only satisfied your waiting period once you have paid for care on specific days that are indicated in your policy.

Besides the schedule for receiving and paying for care, insurance firms also have different requirements for the health care providers that will be providing you care. Majority of insurance companies marketing LTCI clearly state in LTCI policies that receiving care from family caregivers will not satisfy the elimination period so LTCI buyers can brush off this idea completely.

Now when choosing your elimination period you have to take your resources or assets into consideration. If they are limited, then you’re better off with a shorter waiting period but if you have a lot to protect then settle for the longer waiting period.

Just like with the maximum benefit amount and benefit period of your LTCI policy, study the options that have been laid out for your long term care elimination period and take the time to assess your finances.