Self Insure or Pay for Insurance
Is it wise to self insure for long-term care or just buy insurance? Manisha Thakor founder and chief executive of Santa Fe, N.M. based MoneyZen Wealth Management LLC said on her article on Wall Street Journal, that Long-term-care insurance is a new product and it don't have the history of dealing with claims payment like home and auto insurance.
She also said that young people have the power to choose, right to choose to self insure themselves, “By taking the money you would have put in long-term-care premiums and investing them in a low cost 60/40 balanced index fund, you can create your own pool of funds to draw on down the road if need be–and avoid the dreaded “claim denied” scenario,” she said.
But self insuring will take a lot of discipline and majority of Americans I believe will not be able to keep on investing every month and put it on 60% stocks and 40% bonds. The plus side to self insuring is if you don't need long term care you can keep the money to yourself or give it to your heirs.
However, if we take into consideration the inflation rate, it can be costly the price of health care will considerably increase by the time you need it. The plus side of having a good insurance is it can protect you against inflation.
According to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance there are more or less 8 million Americans that have long-term care insurance. The premiums costs for single males have decrease while the premiums for females increased.
If a 55yo male who is single bought a new long-term care insurance protection in 2014, he will pay about $925 per year for $164,000 of benefits American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance said. He would pay $1,765 for coverage that increases the benefit pool to $365,000 at age 85, a 14.5% decline from last year’s average.
If a 55yo single woman pay an average of $1,225 every year for the same level of benefits available to a single man for $925.