Know Your Long Term Care Insurance Rider PDF Print E-mail
Written by Maria Smith   
Monday, 13 September 2010 17:51
Nursing home care, home health care, assisted living and adult day care in some combination is offered by Long Term Care Insurance Policies. Special features, discounts, riders and expanded benefits distinguish one insurance companyfrom another. While some benefits come with a basic policy with few companies others offer the same at an extra cost through riders.
by MariaSmith


Nursing home care, home health care, assisted living and adult day care in some combination is offered by Long Term Care Insurance Policies. Special features, discounts, riders and expanded benefits distinguish one insurance companyfrom another. While some benefits come with a basic policy with few companies others offer the same at an extra cost through riders.

Though riders come with valuable benefits you must decide which riders are worth the extra cost. Few riders result in increased cost without corresponding increases in benefits. Review the following rider options below before you consider buying LTCI policy.

Spousal Benefit Rider A LTCI policy with a Spousal Benefit Rider may cost more but it comes with the advantage where each spouse can tap into the other's benefit pool. This allows the policy holders to claim five or six years of benefits.

Home Health Care Rider Almost all LTCI policies have some sort of home health care as part of their basic policy. Earlier some insurance companies offered home health care as a rider. But nowadays popular tax qualified long term care insurance policies enable you to use benefits which are not considered taxable income which also cover some home health care. If you are one of those with a non-tax qualified policy, ask your insurance company if you have home health care coverage.

Non-forfeiture Benefit Rider This rider allows you to still receive some of your benefits even if you stop paying premiums. The two kinds of non-forfeiture benefit riders are the 'cash back option' rider and the 'shortened benefit period' rider. In case of your death or you stopped paying premiums the 'return of premium' rider or 'refund of premium' rider also known as the cash back option feature guarantees the return of your premium to you or your beneficiary. The 'shortened benefit period' rider gives your benefits for a specific amount of time based on how much you paid into the policy.

Return of Premium or Refund of Premium Upon Death Rider Not all companies nor all states offer the return of premium or refund of premium which pays upon death. Some or all of your paid up premiums are distributed to your designated beneficiary or estate Ii the policy benefits are not used by you during your life time with this rider. This rider can be built into the policy at a small price or added on as a rider. The built in return of premium or refund of premium rider allows the policy holder's beneficiary or estate to receive premiums paid into the policy if the policy holder dies before the age of 65 or 70. A tax deduction in the amount of the premium can be received by a business with the return of premium rider.

Inflation Rider The most important rider regardless of which long term care insurance policy you buy is the inflation Rider. It is important you have an inflation rider in order to ensure that your LTCI benefits keep pace with the rising cost of health care.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

Want to find out more about long term care insurance, then visit Maria Smith's site on how to choose the best long term care insurance policy for your needs.