The average life expectancy of an American woman is 80.8 years, while American men live only 75.6 years on average. In fact, pretty much wherever you live in the world, no matter how short your life expectancy is, if you’re a woman, you’re going to live on average at least a couple months longer than your male counterparts. Longer life and the cultural tendency of women caring for men as their health declines tends to result in women accounting for two out of every three “benefit dollars” spent by long-term care insurers. Which is why long-term care coverage is beginning to factor women’s life expectancy into their underwriting. Beginning next year, Genworth Financial, the largest provider of long-term care coverage will begin charging women as much as 40 percent more than they charge men for the same coverage according to an article in “The Wall Street Journal.”
Buying a long-term care policy can be a way of paying for the extremely costly effects of needing long-term care but there’s more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to paying for long-term care and those other ways may be more cost effective. Often long term care policies cost more than their benefits are worth. Insurance coverage isn’t for everyone. There are some definite things you’re going to want in order to ensure that the insurance coverage you buy if you choose to buy it will be useful and cost effective. Talk to an elder law attorney before signing up with any insurance carrier.
