{"id":331,"date":"2025-07-25T18:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/homepay\/long-term-care-insurance-for-consumer-directed-care\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T18:55:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T18:55:20","slug":"long-term-care-insurance-for-consumer-directed-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/long-term-care-insurance-for-consumer-directed-care\/","title":{"rendered":"How long-term care insurance works for senior care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No one wants to believe that some day they will need help with everyday tasks. But the truth is, at some point, many of us will need some form of senior care. A reported 75% of Americans age 50+ want to age at home, according to the most recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/pri\/topics\/livable-communities\/housing\/2024-home-community-preferences\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AARP survey<\/a>, and they will require support and assistance from loved ones and professionals to do so safely and comfortably. In cases where family members are unable to help, families may consider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/senior-care\">hiring a senior caregiver<\/a> to provide companionship and assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs).<\/p><p>That caregiving professional providing custodial care may be among a group of caregivers employed by a home care agency (agency-directed care) or may be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/private-employment-or-senior-care-agency\">privately employed caregiver<\/a>, who will be there day in and day out and work directly for the senior or family (consumer-directed care). Since care is typically the largest expense item for many seniors, many financial experts recommend considering a long-term care (LTC) insurance policy to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/practical-ways-to-pay-for-long-term-care\/\">help pay for the cost of care<\/a>.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-long-term-care-insurance\"><strong>What is long-term care insurance?<\/strong><\/h2><p>Long-term care insurance (LCTI) is a type of insurance policy that helps cover future expenses related to the care of an individual, often an older adult, which may include chronic illnesses, disabilities or other conditions that require ongoing assistance with daily activities. Unlike regular health insurance or Medicare, long-term care insurance is specifically designed to help pay for non-medical care and personal support that many older adults or people with disabilities may eventually need. LCTI typically pays for care provided at:<\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Home (home health aides).<\/li><li>Assisted living facilities.<\/li><li>Nursing homes.<\/li><li>Adult day care centers.<\/li><\/ul><p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaltci.org\/news\/long-term-care-insurance-news\/7-5-million-americans-have-long-term-care-insurance-protection\">American Association of Long-Term Care Insurance<\/a>, more than 7.5 million Americans have some form of long-term care insurance protection. Most policies have age and health eligibility requirements, and different carriers provide different amounts and types of coverage, so look closely at the details before purchasing any policy. In general, purchasing a policy when you&rsquo;re younger is less expensive than buying when you&rsquo;re older. There are also some life insurance products that allow some of the death benefit to be converted into long-term care coverage.<\/p><p><strong>Read more: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/long-term-care-insurance-pay-assisted-living\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Does long-term care insurance pay for assisted living?<\/a><\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-makes-you-eligible-to-receive-benefits-from-a-long-term-care-policy\"><strong>What makes you eligible to receive benefits from a long-term care policy?<\/strong><\/h2><p>This can vary by long-term care policy, but generally when a person is unable to perform a certain number of basic daily tasks, a long-term care insurance policy can begin paying out benefits so the person can have someone in their home to assist with these tasks. Some of these <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/activities-of-daily-living\/\">activities of daily living<\/a> (ADLs) can include bathing, dressing, eating, lifting, using the restroom and walking. Some policies can begin paying benefits if you are diagnosed with a cognitive condition, such as Alzheimer&rsquo;s disease.<\/p><p>Some older policies have provisions that require care be facilitated by a staffing agency. However, in recent years, there has been a significant trend toward also allowing the family to hire a caregiver privately on their own because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/private-employment-or-senior-care-agency\">it can be more cost-effective<\/a>. Additionally, some families prefer this option for cognitive-decline cases because of the need for care continuity and stability of having the same familiar caregiver every day. That said, LTC carriers do require any form of in-home care to be carefully documented and the employment to be handled in a professional and compliant manner.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-get-the-support-you-need\">Get the support you need<\/h2><p>Our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/homepay\/senior-care\">HomePay service<\/a> was built to support families who opt to hire a caregiver or small team of caregivers (sometimes called consumer-directed care). Whether you&rsquo;re paying out of pocket or have a long-term care policy, our team can provide payroll documentation and tax calculations to assist in reimbursements and free up valuable time on your end.<\/p><p>If you have any questions about purchasing a long-term care insurance policy or making a claim with a privately hired caregiver, don&rsquo;t hesitate to call our office at (888) 273-3356 or feel free to get started online.<\/p><p><strong>Next steps:<\/strong><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/senior-care\">Find a senior caregiver for your loved ones<\/a>.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/budgeting-for-in-home-senior-care-costs\">Learn what should be part of your senior care budget<\/a>.<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/senior-care-tax-breaks\">Read about tax breaks associated with hiring a caregiver<\/a>.<\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Families with senior care needs can turn to long-term care insurance policies to help make care more affordable. Learn how these policies work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1301,"featured_media":3868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":false,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"2025-07-25T18:55:09.984Z","last_update":"2025-07-25","view_count":1962,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"member-type":[2],"vertical":[92],"platform":[11],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","member-type-seeker","vertical-seniors","platform-homepay"],"acf":[],"created":"2018-06-18","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3870,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/3870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/hp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}