As with all insurance, the payouts you receive are a reflection of the coverage you choose.
When shopping for insurance, you - along with your LTC insurance agent - typically start by figuring out the daily cost of nursing-home care today. Next, you need to decide how many years of that coverage you would like. The bigger the number, the more expensive your policy. As a rule of thumb, the average amount of time spent in a nursing home (among folks who need that type of care) is about three years.
Let's say you want to plan for care at $220 a day - the current national average - and you want the coverage to last for four years. That's $220 multiplied by 1,460 days, which equals $321,200. So, in the jargon of LTC, you would choose a policy with a lifetime benefit of $321,200.
That doesn't mean you will be limited to drawing $220 a day for four years. Most plans just let you draw on the lifetime benefit: You can draw it down over 10 years or 10 months. That's your decision. All the company cares about is that your total lifetime benefit will not exceed that $321,200.
