Long-Term Care Insurance Tips: What to Know Before You Buy
Interactive tips for buying long-term care insurance — see if it's right for you, stack every discount, build your own policy, and spot red flags in sales pitches.
Most "long-term care insurance tips" pages are a static list someone wrote a decade ago. This one is different. Below you'll find the same ten tips we've been giving clients for years — rebuilt as small interactive tools so you can answer the questions for yourself, right here on the page.
Is LTC insurance even right for you?
Tip #1 in every honest guide is the one most websites skip past: LTCi isn't for everyone. Before you shop, spend a minute on the screener below. If your situation doesn't fit, a good broker will tell you — that's us.
Tip #2 — Is LTCi right for you?
Check every statement that applies to you.
We’ll tell you honestly whether long-term care insurance is likely a fit — or whether another strategy would serve you better.
Stack every discount you can
Most buyers only ever see a single quote, and single quotes almost never stack the discounts a carrier actually offers. Health-based discounts, spousal discounts, partner discounts, and good-health credits all compound multiplicatively — and leaving any of them off the table is leaving hundreds of dollars a year on the table, forever.
Tip #3 — Stackable discounts
Which discounts can you stack?
Carriers layer discounts most buyers never see in their quote. Toggle the ones that apply to you.
Illustrative only. Discount availability varies by carrier and state — most agents only show you one carrier. As an independent broker we make sure every available discount is applied in your quotes.
A common example: a 58-year-old couple with preferred health who applies together can see close to 40% off the sticker premium — but only if the agent actually pulls both the preferred-health class and the couples discount. We've seen quotes from commissioned reps where one or both were silently missing.
Understand what you're actually buying
The four levers below drive the overwhelming majority of your premium — and how much protection you actually end up with. Slide any of them and watch everything else move. This is the exercise every LTCi buyer should do before they're sitting in front of an application.
Tip #5 — Know what you’re buying
Build a policy and watch the numbers move.
Four levers drive the vast majority of your premium — and your protection. Drag any slider and see what happens.
What the policy pays per day of qualifying care. National average nursing home cost is ~$310/day.
How long the policy can keep paying. Average claim length is about 3 years.
Your deductible, measured in days. 90 days is the industry standard.
Protects your benefit’s purchasing power decades from now. Skipping this is the single most common regret.
Never, ever, skip inflation protection to shrink the premium. A policy without compound inflation is worth roughly half as much at age 85 — exactly when you're most likely to need it. It's the single most common regret we hear from clients who bought in a hurry.
Pick the right buying path
Tip #4 — "do not buy from your investment guy" — exists because most financial advisors sell one or two LTCi policies a year. They're not bad people; they're just not specialists. Meanwhile, group plans (including the federal FLTCIP) bundle everyone into the same rate class, which almost always costs healthy buyers more than the individual market.
Answer three quick questions and we'll give you a concrete, personalized shopping plan.
Who is offering you coverage right now?
Most buyers start from one of these four places.
Score any agent pitch for red flags
Once you start shopping, you'll likely talk to at least one agent who trips one of the classic warning signs — pressure tactics, single-carrier quotes, missing inflation protection, or "Medicare-endorsed" marketing claims. The checker below captures the ten most common red flags we see pitched to clients. If you're actively comparing agents or brokers right now, run your current pitch through it.
Tips #9 & #10 — Pitch red flags
Rate your current pitch.
Check anything that has happened in conversations with an agent so far. The more you check, the louder you should hear the alarm bells.
Nothing checked yet.
If none of the above has happened in your conversations, the pitch you’re getting is cleaner than what most buyers see.
The original ten tips, updated for 2026
If you'd rather just read the list, here's our short version of the tips the interactive tools above expand on:
- Shop multiple carriers. Premiums can vary 40–60% for the same buyer. Never, ever buy on a single quote.
- LTCi isn't for everyone. With liquid assets under ~$50K or serious chronic conditions, look at hybrid life/LTC, annuity-based solutions, or Medicaid planning instead.
- Only buy from A-rated or better carriers. You may hold this policy for 30–40 years — financial strength matters more than the splashiest sales pitch.
- Don't buy from your financial advisor. They can legally sell LTCi, but almost all of them sell only a handful of policies a year. Use a specialist the way you'd use an oncologist instead of a GP.
- Understand riders. What a policy doesn't cover often matters more than what it does. Options and riders is our plain-English primer.
- Qualifying is not automatic. At 60+, roughly 30% of applicants are declined. The younger and healthier you apply, the better the outcome and the lower the rate — so don't wait for a "perfect" time.
- Don't rely on Medicare or Medicaid. Medicare covers only short-term skilled care. Medicaid requires near-total asset spend-down and sharply limits facility choice.
- Take your tax breaks. Qualified LTCi benefits are tax-free, and premiums are often deductible. See our tax deductibility guide.
- Refuse pushy local sales tactics. Anyone who insists on a home visit is selling to you, not advising you.
- Ignore "Medicare-endorsed" marketing. Medicare does not endorse or sell LTCi — any claim otherwise is a disclosure violation and a reason to walk away.
The bottom line
Long-term care insurance is one of the few financial products where the person selling it matters almost as much as the product itself. The interactive tools above reflect how we actually work with clients: we tell you up front whether LTCi is the right fit, show you every available discount, walk you through exactly what each dollar of premium buys, and help you avoid the traps that leave so many buyers stuck with sub-par coverage.
If you'd like an honest, no-pressure comparison across every top-rated carrier — one that applies every discount you qualify for and shows the full premium picture — that's what we're here for. Request quotes below and we'll mail them to you so you can review on your own time.