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Buying long-term care coverage in your 70s? 3 tips for getting approved
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Many people will need some type of long-term care as they age — but not everyone is prepared for the potential long-term care issues that may arise or the high costs that come with it. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than half of Americans turning 65 today — or about 56% — will develop a disability severe enough that they’ll require long-term services and support.
This type of care comes with a price tag that can easily surpass $100,000 per year depending on what type of care you need. But paying for long-term care doesn’t have to require paying out of pocket. You have the option to get long-term care insurance coverage, which helps to cover these types of costs. However, it’s easier for younger applicants to get approved for a policy, as your age, health status and other factors are weighed heavily during the process.
Securing long-term care coverage might be more challenging for older applicants, though, as it’s more likely that you’ll have chronic health issues that could complicate things. But the good news is that there are a few ways to improve your chances of approval, experts say. Here are a few tips for getting approved for long-term care insurance in your 70s and beyond.
Compare the top long-term care insurance options for you now.
Buying long-term care coverage in your 70s? 3 tips for getting approved
There are no formal age restrictions for getting approved for long-term care insurance. But as we age, it becomes more likely that we face a host of health issues, which means it could be harder to get approved for coverage, especially at an affordable price.
“As we age, our health may deteriorate, and this will directly impact your coverage qualifications,” says Imrana Begg, executive director at Experior Financial Group. “The older you [are], the riskier you are considered by an insurance carrier.”
You could still get coverage in your 70s, Begg says, but the older you get, the harder it is to get approved.
“The likelihood of a 70-year-old getting approved for coverage is around 50/50,” Begg says. “Some carriers will approve an applicant up to age 80. After age 80, it’s highly possible a carrier will deny coverage.”
Getting long-term care coverage in your 70s might be more challenging than getting it when you’re younger, but there are some ways you can get approved, including:
1. Opt for an annuity doubler
Rather than buying long-term care insurance by itself, you may want to purchase it as a dual product — meaning you’re purchasing it with other types of coverage, like an annuity doubler.
“Explore dual products such as annuities with long-term care doublers,” says Jason LaBarge, president and financial advisor at LaBarge Financial. “Typically, your annuity payments will double to help you pay for long-term care services and expenses.”
Many insurance companies offer annuity options for adding long-term benefits. These additions can help you pay for out-of-pocket costs that you would otherwise be unable to afford.
“If you invest $100,000 into an annuity with a long-term care rider and your healthcare questionnaire aligns with the insurance company’s standards, you might qualify for $200,000 or $300,000 in long-term care benefits over your lifetime,” he says.
Let’s say you secure a policy with a $2,000 monthly annuity payment and a long-term care doubler. If at some point you can’t perform at least two of the six basic activities of living — personal hygiene or grooming, dressing, toileting, transferring or ambulating, and eating — the payments you receive as part of your policy would increase to $4,000 a month.
“Qualifying for affordable long-term care coverage later in life can be challenging, but no underwriting is required to add on an annuity doubler,” LaBarge says. “This is a major benefit to those in their 70s who may already be experiencing some health complications.”
Find out the many benefits of securing the right long-term care insurance policy.
2. Look into long-term care riders
Adding a long-term care insurance rider to your life insurance policy can also help you secure long-term care coverage so it’s available if or when you need it.
“These types of options typically allow the policyholder to ‘turn on’ their long-term care benefits only if and when it’s necessary,” LaBarge says. “Underwriting is required to add a long-term care rider to a life insurance policy.”
When you take this route, the funds for long-term care expenses are there if you need them. If you don’t, you’ll typically still get the same death benefits as you would with a regular life insurance policy.
“Hybrid life and long-term care insurance can provide greater coverage,” Jason Handal, vice president of risk products at Northwestern Mutual, says. “With this option, qualified long-term care expenses are initially reimbursed by accessing the policy’s death benefit. Once the death benefit is used, you can access additional funds if you continue to be eligible to receive benefits. If you don’t need these funds to cover long-term care expenses, the death benefit value will remain intact, just like a traditional life insurance policy. It’s also a permanent product, so it grows cash value.”
3. Talk to a professional
If you’re worried about getting approved for long-term care coverage, it might help to talk to someone who can assess your unique circumstances and help build a plan, and a policy, that’s best for you.
“Work with an advisor and consider the need for long-term care coverage in the context of a holistic financial plan,” Handal says. “The advisor can then work closely with that individual to determine the best and most appropriate solution for their unique needs and particular situation, including weighing any health issues they might have, as well as their goals, concerns and budget.”
It’s not a one-size-fits-all situation, though. That’s why Begg recommends talking it out with a professional for extra help.
“It is highly recommended that a person looking to purchase long-term care insurance talk to a professional,” Begg says. “A good analysis can show the ability of a client to maintain monthly premiums.”
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
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Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Chris Wright, a campaign donor and fossil fuel executive, to serve as energy secretary in his upcoming, second administration.
CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, Wright is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development, including fracking, a key pillar of Trump’s quest to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market.
Trump also said in a statement Saturday that Wright will serve on the newly-created National Energy Council, which will be chaired by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s selection for secretary of the Interior.
Burgum will oversee a panel that crosses all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, Trump said in a previous statement.
Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.
Wright also has criticized what he calls a “top-down” approach to climate by liberal and left-wing groups and said the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.”
Consideration of Wright to head the administration’s energy department won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm.
Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term.
Hamm helped organize an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Trump would curtail environmental regulations if re-elected.
The Energy Department is responsible for advancing energy, environmental and nuclear security of the United States. The agency is in charge of maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons, oversees 17 national research laboratories and approves natural gas exports, as well as ensuring environmental cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. It also promotes scientific and technological research.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso, who is expected to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Trump promised bold choices for his Cabinet, and Wright’s nomination delivers.
“He’s s an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America’s fracking boom. After four years of America last energy policy, our country is desperate for a secretary (of energy) who understands how important American energy is to our economy and our national security,″ Barrasso said of Wright, adding: “Wright will help ensure America remains committed to an all-of-the-above energy policy that puts American families first.”
Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a conservative group that supports fossil fuels, said Wright would be “an excellent choice” for Energy secretary. Pyle led Trump’s Energy Department’s transition team in 2016.
Liberty is a major energy industry service provider, with a focus on technology. Wright, who grew up in Colorado, earned undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.
