Best Long-Term Care Insurance

Mutual of Omaha sells two standalone long-term care plans, MutualCare Secure and MutualCare Custom, that let you tailor your coverage to your needs. You have to work with an agent to get a policy.

MutualCare Secure is a good basic policy, and MutualCare Custom gives you more options. For example, with all long-term care plans, you have to choose a "waiting period" or "elimination period." This is the amount of time you have to pay for your own long-term care before your plan will start paying. With MutualCare Custom, you can choose a zero-day waiting period, which means your plan will start paying for your care as soon as you need it.

The shorter your waiting period, the faster your long-term care insurance will start to pay for your living costs. You'll pay more each month for a shorter waiting period, but you won't have to pay for as much of your long-term care costs as you would otherwise.

MutualCare Custom also lets you choose an overall policy limit. With most long-term care plans, including MutualCare Secure, you choose how long you want your plan to pay for long-term care, such as two or five years. With MutualCare Custom, you instead choose a total coverage amount, up to $500,000. Your plan will then pay you the monthly benefit until you reach your total plan limit. With this option, you might be able to get care for a longer period of time.

Rather than setting a daily limit for long-term care costs, Mutual of Omaha structures its policies with a monthly benefit. That way, if your daily care changes throughout the month, you don't risk letting your coverage go unused.

MutualCare Custom also has an option to add extra coverage for home health care. That way, if the cost for specific types of home health care is more than your monthly coverage amount, your plan will increase what it pays.

Mutual of Omaha doesn't let you get quotes or see much policy info on their website. You have to talk to an agent to get quotes and info, which is probably a good idea anyway, given how complex long-term care insurance is.

New York Life offers two kinds of standalone long-term care policies, My Care and Secure Care, plus a life insurance policy. New York Life's policies have a lot of unique features that make them a good option if you're looking for flexibility.

My Care is a good option if you're willing to pay for some of your long-term care costs. The plan works more like health insurance than other long-term care plans. You can choose between four tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. These aren't the same as the plan tiers in health insurance, although they have the same names. But like health insurance, higher tiers like Platinum give you more coverage.

Instead of a waiting period, My Care has a one-time deductible that you pay when you need long-term care.

My Care also has coinsurance, which means you and the company split the cost for long-term care. No matter which plan tier you pick, My Care pays for only 80% of your long-term care costs, up to the maximum monthly benefit amount. You have to pay the other 20% after you've paid the one-time deductible.

New York Life My Care benefits

New York Life is one of the best life insurance companies because of its customizable policies, customer satisfaction and high financial stability.

Secure Care is a more traditional long-term care plan, with a daily benefit, waiting period and benefit period. There are three Secure Care options: 100, 150 and 250.

Secure Care has a daily benefit for long-term care. This means the plan will pay up to the benefit amount each day that you need long-term care, whether in a facility or in your home. Daily benefits are common, but they can be problematic. If you have a daily benefit of $150, for example, but need only $100 worth of care that day, you can't get the leftover $50.

New York Life Secure Care benefits

With both My Care and Secure Care, your rates might go up after three years. For the first three years, rates stay steady. After that, though, the company could increase rates. Long-term care plans can be expensive. Make sure you can afford a higher rate before you buy one of these plans, in case your costs go up in future years.

If a standalone long-term care policy isn't for you, you can buy a specialized universal life insurance policy with long-term care coverage, called Asset Flex. Your rate is guaranteed to never increase, and you can even get your money back if you never need the long-term care coverage, as long as you meet certain requirements. Plus, because it's also a life insurance policy, your loved ones will get a sum of money if you pass away.

Nationwide offers three different ways to get long-term care coverage: CareMatters and CareMatters Together, which are both attached to a universal life insurance policy, and a long-term care add-on for universal or variable life insurance policies. This means you'll have coverage for your long-term care and your loved ones will receive a life insurance payout when you pass away.

Nationwide even guarantees that your beneficiaries will get at least a 20% death benefit, no matter how much of the long-term care benefits you've used. The long-term care benefits come out of your total life insurance amount. Without the guarantee of a death benefit, it's possible to use all of the life insurance amount for your long-term care. That would mean your beneficiaries don't get a payout when you pass away. Nationwide's guaranteed 20% death benefit is a huge perk in that regard.

CareMatters and CareMatters Together also have flexibility that other long-term care coverage doesn't.

Nationwide also allows you to add long-term care coverage to its universal and variable life insurance products, although there might be more stipulations on how the money is used.