PlanMatch · Long-Term Care
The care plan nobody wants to need.
Seven in ten people turning 65 will need some long-term care — and Medicare mostly doesn't pay for it. Here's how the coverage actually works, explained straight, with a licensed Colorado agent one call away.
Online LTC quoting is coming soon. Talk it through with a licensed agent now: 1-800-597-1001 (TTY 711).
Medicare doesn't cover this. Really.
Medicare pays for skilled, short-term care — up to 100 days in a skilled nursing facility after a hospital stay, with conditions. It does not pay for ongoing help with daily living: bathing, dressing, meals, memory care, a home aide, or a long assisted-living stay. That's "custodial care," and it's the care most people actually need — at a national median north of $60,000 a year for home care and over $100,000 for a private nursing-home room. Medicaid steps in only after most savings are spent. Long-term care insurance exists for exactly this gap.
Two honest ways to cover it
Traditional LTC insurance
Pure long-term care coverage: you pick a monthly benefit, a benefit period, and a waiting period. Usually the most benefit per premium dollar — but premiums can rise over time, and if you never need care, there's no payout.
Hybrid life + LTC
Life insurance with a long-term care benefit built in: if you need care, it pays for care; if you never do, your beneficiaries get the death benefit. Premiums are typically guaranteed. You pay for that certainty — it's the faster-growing choice for a reason, but not automatically the better one.
Which fits depends on health, age, savings, and what you want to leave behind — that's a suitability conversation with a licensed agent, not a score from a website. Call 1-800-597-1001 (TTY 711).
When to look
Most people shop in their 50s and early 60s. Long-term care coverage is medically underwritten — waiting too long can raise the price sharply or close the door entirely. Buying earlier costs less per year for longer; buying later costs more for less, if you still qualify. There's no scoring that answers this for you — it's a conversation about your health, savings, and family.
Questions first? Ask Ramona.
Ramona is an AI assistant grounded in official sources — Medicare.gov, the federal government's long-term care planning resources, and insurance-regulator consumer guides. Every answer cites where it came from, and when the sources don't cover a question, she says so instead of guessing. She provides information and does not sell or recommend a specific policy.