Get Ready To Pay $60,000 Per Annum For Relative's Long Term Care.

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41. But you have to plan far ahead on long term care insurance

My mother in law paid for a policy starting not long after I married. When she got the policy it was supposed to be excellent coverage - but she never reviewed it or how much it covered.

Last year when she needed to go into a nursing home and then into an assisted living facility, the family was startled to find out that her "excellent" coverage only paid about $50 a day. Maybe in the late 1970s that would have paid for a decent facility but not in 2016!

After the facility sent her back to the hospital three times for preventable illnesses she decided to go home where a brother in law had been helping take care of her for the last ten plus years. When she went back in the hospital on New Year's Eve we were all worried she'd be going through the same cycle of nursing home, assisted living, hospital.

Unfortunately the doctors realized there was nothing more they could do for her and recommended hospice care. Less than a day later she passed away.

The moral is - if you buy long term care insurance, you HAVE to review the amounts on a regular basis. Healthcare costs continuously go up and if you don't increase your coverage you may not have enough by the time you need it.