It's open enrollment season for the next few days for me at my workplace.  Twil and I have discussed sharing one employer's plan and I think that's what we're going to do this time.  There's one new wrinkle in Washington State.  A state law has recently gone into effect requiring anyone who draws a paycheck in WA to have a qualified Long Term Care insurance plan.  If you have one from a private/employer provided source, great (*).  If you don't you'll automatically be enrolled in the state run plan to the tune of $0.58 per $100 of pay, which is a lot.  I did opt in to the employer provided plan, but theirs is scaled to age (which makes some sense, older people being more likely to file a claim and have shorter time to make contributions).  Anyhow, it's pretty expensive, $220/month for about $75000 worth of coverage, which if not used as LTC payments can be distributed as a life insurance payout upon my death.  Still, compulsory and not cheap.

glatt wrote:

5 years ago, when I was POA for my cousin and paying his nursing home bills with his money, it was $6k per month to stay in a nursing home in a dementia wing (which just means there are locks on the doors that you can't open from the inside.)  When my FIL was moving into a nursing home, my research said the average stay in a nursing home was around 2 years.

Anyway, you do the math, and a nursing home stay will set the average person back about $144K around here.  $75K of coverage isn't anywhere near enough here, and $0.58 per $100 of income is very reasonable, especially if that's not age based.  Shit, I'm going to move to Washington when I get older.  That's super affordable.  Are you sure you didn't mean $5.80 per $100?  Or does the state run plan only pay out like $10k and/or house you for a month or two?

 

The coverage is pretty lightweight.

You accrue a maximum of about $35000, and it can be spent in WA for any LTC care you need.  It's your forever, but there's no non-LTC payout option.  You're vested after some number of years, 5 ish, sorry I don't know for sure.

NONE of the insurance options actually pays for the care costs, save Medicaid.  For which you have to spend yourself into poverty in order to qualify.  Due to some late paperwork on my part, my Mom's place, where she's been for years, submitted a bill to me for >$244,000.  When I regained consciousness, I got it worked out with the state/fed again and we're back on track.  She has a fixed income, ~$50-75 of which she gets to keep each month.  The rest goes toward the cost of her care and the state/fed picks up the rest.  Her care is expensive, to be sure.  She is not independently mobile, non verbal, it's not just a shitshow, it's a whole shit-circus.  And impossibly expensive.  

None, repeat, none of the plans I've ever seen would cover those costs.  Not even for a short time, they're limited to how much can be spent how fast.  You might get a brief  reprieve from bankruptcy, but the cliff is still there.

Smart woman.