An article this week in the Wall Street Journal reveals that users of Apple’s Macintosh computers who visit travel site Orbitz spend an average of $30 more per night on hotels than their Microsoft Windows PC counterparts. With higher per-capita income and different buying patterns, a new study indicates that Macintosh computer users also purchase bigger Long-Term Care Insurance policies, and more often.

A study of 184,000 visits to Long-Term Care Insurance shopping site LTC Tree found that one’s choice of computing platform may reveal more than just hotel buying habits.

Macintosh users are 14.1% more likely to buy Long-Term Care coverage than Windows users, and they are likely to buy policies that are 9.3% more expensive, on average.

The immediate question is: are Mac users more attuned to the risk of needing Long Term Care in the future, or are they just bigger consumers overall? A 9.3% increase in premiums would amount to an extra year of coverage on a typical Long Term Care policy, estimates Drew Nichols, co-founder of LTC Tree.

An avid technologist, Nichols wanted to include Linux users in the study despite the lower market share the operating system commands. The venerable Open Source operating system, which is freely available and adopted by higher-tech users generally, was analyzed in the study and added to the mysterious differences between users of various computing operating systems. The trait of thrift that leads to using a free open source operating system equates to an average Long Term Care premium that is 30% less on average than premiums of Mac users. Linux users were also found to purchase Long-Term Care Insurance at nearly half the rate of Mac users.

LTC Tree is an online Long Term Care Insurance shopping site that allows consumers to shop a market of top-rated insurance carriers without the need to meet an agent face-to-face for a high-pressure sales meeting. With 10,000 baby boomers retiring each day, the awareness of need for Long Term Care protection is on the rise. What is not on the rise is the tired old sales approach that is often used to sell Long Term Care Insurance policies at the kitchen table. LTC Tree’s approach focuses more on distance learning concepts and encourages comparison and competition of various insurers.