The short version: earlier than most people do, and well before it feels urgent.

Why timing matters more here than in most insurance

Two things move against you as you wait. Premiums rise with age at purchase — the age you are when the policy starts generally sets the pricing for its life, not your age at claim. And health underwriting gets harder. Long-term care insurance is medically underwritten, and the conditions that make people think about it are often the conditions that make them uninsurable for it.

That second point is the one that catches families. The moment you become certain you need this product is frequently the moment you can no longer buy it.

The window most people use

Mid-fifties to mid-sixties is where most serious conversations happen. Early enough that health is usually still straightforward, late enough that the expense is not carried for decades longer than necessary. It also tends to coincide with other planning — retirement timing, Medicare approaching, parents needing help.

The trigger that brings most people to us

Watching a parent go through it. That experience answers the question of whether this matters far more convincingly than any explanation we could give, and it is why a lot of these conversations start with someone in their fifties calling about their mother and ending up asking about themselves.

Buying earlier is not automatically right

Buying at 45 means paying premiums for potentially forty years before any claim. The calculation depends on your health, your family history, your assets and what you want to protect. Anyone telling you there is one correct age is selling rather than advising.

What to bring to the conversation

An honest health history, a sense of what you are trying to protect, and whether anyone in your family has needed extended care. Also worth knowing before you start: Medicare does not pay for ongoing custodial care, which is the gap this product addresses. See how long-term care insurance works.

Read next: what can disqualify an application, which is the real reason timing matters, and what drives the premium.