No one can say with certainty what the future has in store for anyone. However the longer you live the more likely you are too need long term care. As medical advances continue to flourish people are going to continue living longer and longer, but that doesn’t prevent the need for long term care. If anything our longevity increases our needs for long term care in the future.

Long Term Care Statistics 

  •  70% of all couples over the age of 65 have a high chance of one or more of them needing long term care.
  • The older the Baby Boomer generation gets, the number of people who require care keep rising. Experts now say that an average of 65% of people over the age of 75 need long term care.
  • The average stay for an older person is 3 years in a care facility. 

(These numbers are for nursing home care only and does not equate for other care facilities)

  • 97% of people over the age of 85 years need assistance during their last years of their lives.
  • As a single person you are at a higher risk, because they do not typically have someone else to take care of them in older age the way a wife may take care of her husband until she cannot.
  • Currently fewer than 1 in 30 United States citizens own long term care insurance policies and only about 7% of those people are adults over the age of 50.
  • 1 out of 4 people over the age of 65 are currently in nursing homes.
  • 5% of people over the age of 65 live in nursing homes, 50% of these people are 85 years old or older. 35% are between the ages of 75 and 85 years old and 15% of these people are between the ages of 65 and 74.

Why Should You Be Insured?

  • More than half of all people in the United States enter into a care situation and become penniless within the first year of receiving care without any long term care insurance policy in place.
  • Tax breaks for premiums highlight Washington’s support of private insurance.
  • Every year the cost of a room in nursing homes rises by a percentage.
  • Retirement does not always cover all of the needs of a person’s long term care.

What Does LTC Coverage Do?

Long term care is a policy put in place by you and your insurance agent and is designed to meet a person’s health or personal care needs after retirement and towards the end of one’s life. Long term care helps people live as independently and safely as possible after they can no longer perform their everyday tasks and activities on their own. Long term care covers service that are not covered by your regular health insurance and includes helping with bathing, dressing, and getting in and out of bed as well as cleaning and shopping for necessities. Now you can say you know the statistics of long term care.