The honest version of the question

Nobody can tell you that long-term care insurance is worth it, because worth depends on what you have, what you would otherwise spend, and what you want your family to be doing when you are 84. What we can do is put the real numbers in front of you and refuse to round them in our own favour. That is this page.

Start with the risk, and use the current figure

You will see 70% quoted everywhere as the share of people who will need long-term care. It comes from an older federal analysis and it has been superseded. The current figure from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in its 2022 research brief on long-term services and supports, is that 56% of Americans turning 65 today will develop a disability serious enough to require long-term services and supports. We would rather hand you the smaller, current number than the bigger, stickier one — a case that needs 70% to work is not a case worth making.

What the same HHS 2022 brief says about duration matters just as much:

  • Average duration of need: 3.1 years.
  • Women: 64% will develop a significant disability, averaging 3.6 years of need. 26% of women will need at least five years.
  • Men: averaging 2.5 years.
  • 12% of people will need help for less than a year. 22% — about one in five — will need it for more than five.
  • Someone alive at 65 can expect another 20.5 years of life.

Notice the shape. This is not a risk that lands evenly. A large group needs a little, a middle group needs around three years, and roughly one in five faces something very long. Insurance is a poor instrument for small predictable costs and a good one for rare catastrophic ones. On these numbers, long-term care is both at once, and which half you are insuring against is the real decision.

Now the money

From the same HHS 2022 brief, for a person turning 65 today, in today's dollars:

  • Average future cost of long-term services and supports: $120,900.
  • Share families pay out of pocket: 37%, averaging $44,800 per person.
  • Share Medicaid pays, the largest single payer: 43%, averaging $51,800.
  • People who will spend at least $100,000 of their own money: 14%.
  • Medicaid's share of costs in institutional settings: 52%. Out-of-pocket share of community-based care: 44%.

Two of those deserve a second look. The first is $44,800 as the average out-of-pocket figure sitting alongside 14% who spend six figures — averages hide tails, and the tail is the thing. The second is that Medicaid pays the largest share, which tells you what the default plan is for people who did not make one. The Jordan Insurance Agency does not sell or advise on Medicaid; we name it because it is the honest answer to who pays when nobody planned.

One more HHS figure is worth holding onto: the average length of paid long-term services and supports is just under one year. Much of the 3.1-year average is unpaid care, given by families. That has a real cost. It is paid in careers, in hours and in health, by people who are usually in their fifties and sixties themselves.

Against that, what a policy costs

The 2026 Long-Term Care Insurance Price Index from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, last updated 28 July 2026, puts published averages for $165,000 of initial benefit per person at:

  • Single man, 55, select health: $950 a year level, $2,200 with 3% growth, $3,710 with 5%.
  • Single woman, 55: $1,500 level, $3,750 at 3%, $6,400 at 5%.
  • Couple both 55, combined: $2,080 for a level benefit.
  • Couple both 65, combined, 3% compound growth: $7,030.

Those are published industry averages, not quotes, and they assume select health that an insurer must agree you have. The full breakdown, including what each design choice does to the number, is on how much long-term care insurance costs.

Who it tends to suit, and who it does not

Being plain about this is more useful than a sales argument.

It tends to make sense for people with assets worth protecting but not enough to absorb several years of care without damage; for people who would rather buy a defined annual cost than carry an undefined one; for couples, where one person's care can consume what both were going to live on; and for anyone whose main worry is not the money at all but what the caregiving would do to a spouse or a daughter.

It tends not to make sense for people with so much that paying $129,575 a year for a private room out of income would not change their life; for people with so little that the premium competes with current necessities; and for anyone who would buy a benefit so small it could not meaningfully offset a $6,200-a-month assisted living median anyway. A policy you cancel at 72 because the premium became uncomfortable is the worst of all outcomes — you paid for the years you were least likely to claim.

The arguments against it, taken seriously

“I might never use it.” True. On the HHS 2022 figure, 44% of people turning 65 will not need long-term services and supports at all. That is what insurance is: most people who buy homeowners coverage never have a fire.

“Premiums can go up.” Also true, and worth asking about directly rather than hoping. It belongs on the list of questions you put to any company before you sign.

“I will just self-insure.” A real strategy, but only if it is an actual plan with an actual number attached. Against a $120,900 average and a one-in-seven chance of spending $100,000 or more yourself, self-insuring means knowing which account that comes out of and what it does to the surviving spouse.

“Medicare will handle it.” It will not. Medicare does not pay for long-term custodial care when help with daily living is the only care needed. The detail is on whether Medicare covers long-term care, and it is the one misconception that costs families the most.

The part of the decision that is not about money

Tax treatment can shift the arithmetic for some households: part of a qualified policy's premium counts as a medical expense within IRS age-based caps, though only as an itemized deduction above 7.5% of adjusted gross income. The figures and the caveats are on whether long-term care insurance is tax deductible, and we are not tax advisers.

And a great deal of the value shows up as choice rather than cash: a funded benefit is often what decides whether someone stays at home with help or moves because the money ran out, and whether assisted living at a $6,200-a-month median is a decision or an impossibility. That side of it is on whether long-term care insurance covers assisted living.

How The Jordan Insurance Agency helps

We will tell you when we think the answer is no. That is not a position most people expect from an agency, and it is the reason to call one that is independent. What we do is put your actual exposure next to published premium averages, design the smallest policy that would genuinely change the outcome rather than the largest one you might qualify for, and compare that design across several companies. Underwriting decides whether you can buy it; we never pretend otherwise.

The Jordan Insurance Agency is an independent, licensed insurance agency based at 3540 Toringdon Way, Suite 200, Charlotte, NC 28277. You can reach us at (704) 926-7565, Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern. Because we are independent we represent multiple carriers rather than one, which is the only way to turn a spread like the 2026 index’s $4,591 to $7,173 — five companies, one couple, identical coverage — to your advantage instead of your cost. A consultation with a licensed agent is free.