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Shoreline & Sound
Long-term care insurance

Long-term care:
the biggest uninsured
risk most retirees face.

About 70% of people 65 and older will need some form of long-term care. Medicare doesn't cover it. Medicaid covers it only after you've spent down to specific limits. Private long-term-care insurance bridges the gap. We help shoreline families decide whether traditional LTC, a hybrid life-and-LTC policy, or self-funding fits their situation best.

What "long-term care" means

Help with the activities of daily living — bathing, dressing, eating, transferring, toileting, continence — when age, illness, or injury makes them difficult. Long-term care includes:

  • In-home care: home health aides, personal care attendants
  • Adult day care
  • Assisted living facilities
  • Memory care for dementia and Alzheimer's
  • Skilled nursing facility (nursing home) care

What it costs

In Connecticut, illustrative 2026 costs:

  • Home health aide: $30–$40/hour. Around-the-clock care can run $200K+/year.
  • Assisted living: $7,000–$10,000/month, more for memory care.
  • Skilled nursing facility: $14,000–$18,000/month for a private room. Connecticut is among the most expensive states in the nation.

Median length of long-term care need is around 2–3 years. So a typical exposure for a couple where both eventually need care can run $500K–$1M.

What Medicare covers

Medicare covers up to 100 days of skilled nursing care after a qualifying hospital stay — and only if you continue to make medical progress. After that, Medicare pays nothing for long-term care. This is the gap families don't realize until they're in it.

If you're 55+ and haven't had this conversation, it's worth one hour with us.

Free 30-min consultation

The three options

1. Traditional long-term-care insurance

Standalone LTC policies pay benefits when you can't perform 2 of 6 activities of daily living, or have severe cognitive impairment. Premiums can rise over the life of the policy — one reason traditional LTC has lost market share. Still the right answer for some families. Best bought between ages 55 and 65.

2. Hybrid life-and-LTC policies

A whole life or universal life policy with a long-term-care rider. If you need care, you tap the death benefit while alive to pay for it. If you never need care, your beneficiary gets the death benefit. Premiums are guaranteed not to rise, unlike traditional LTC. More expensive up front, but more predictable.

3. Self-fund (with Medicaid as backstop)

For some families, the right plan is to self-fund the first few years of care from savings and rely on Medicaid (HUSKY C in Connecticut) if they outlive their assets. This requires careful planning around the 5-year Medicaid look-back rule and is best done with elder-law attorney coordination.

For caregivers

If you're already caring for an aging parent on the shoreline, the conversation is different. Long-term-care insurance won't typically be issued to someone who's already in a care situation — the path is usually Medicaid (HUSKY C) with proper Medicaid planning, ideally with an elder-law attorney. I can help you think through the Medicare side of that picture.

Free 30-min consultation

Long-term care planning, before it's urgent.

Best to have this conversation in your fifties or sixties. We'll talk traditional LTC, hybrid policies, and Medicaid planning — and tell you which path fits your situation.

In person · By phone · By video