70% of us will require some sort of Long Term Care for a nursing home stay, assisted living or home health care. Pick who will take care of you and where you will live for yourself, then sit back and enjoy life.

If you're concerned about being financially secure during your retirement years, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to protect yourself against what could be the greatest threat to your financial security, the cost of long-term care. Below are the current figures from the largest study preformed to date, they are from a Genworth Financial national study involving thousands of facilities, day care centers and medical personnel in the industry, these figures represent the Charlotte and surrounding counties of North Carolina.

• Nursing home – Charlotte NC
        $73,263.00/year private 5%
       $63,145/year semiprivate 4%

• Assisted living unit
       $4675/month 5%

• Home care aide
       $16-23/hour non medical -4%
       $18-$70/hour Medicare Cert -34%

• Adult daycare
       $49/day

If you are currently letting your money sit in a CD or in Bonds for security, consider moving it into a lump sum LTC Hybrid product. If you never use it, you’ll still have your money and can leave it to your heirs. If you do need it, what you start with can be worth 3-4 times more in LTC benefits.

Other traditional options include monthly or annual payments guaranteeing a lump sum payout each month for a set period of time.

For men consider 2.5 years at least and for women 4 years. These are the average time frames each gender uses their LTC benefits.

Get a policy with a 90 day elimination period and you’ll want a “calendar day” start not a service day start period.

Make sure you keep up with inflation with a compounding interest rate of at least 3%. This may be adjusted depending on your age.

These plans are rated (preferred best, preferred, standard etc.) by your health so you will want to purchase them while you are healthy to get the best health rating and lower premium.

If you are married, buy the plan together as there are often substantial discounts.