SmartMoney is an established, respected source of information on personal finance for consumers, so I was pleased to read their positive view of long-term care insurance in a recent article.

I will include an excerpt from that article here that discusses the perils of not having long-term care insurance to pay for skyrocketing costs. But after that the article also provides some excellent recommendations to try to lower those costs as much as possible. It’s very good reading.

Here is the article excerpt:

“The so-called sandwich generation — those caring for their children and their aging parents — are being squeezed more than ever these days.

The retirement savings their parents were depending on are being decimated, while health care and other costs associated with caring for them skyrocket. Add to that steep college tuition bills and the strain on the family budget is, well…overwhelming. According to a 2005 Pew Research Center report, 13% of baby boomers (about 9.75 million) are in such a situation.

On average, these informal caregivers who take care of an elderly friend or relative spend $5,500 a year just on the day-to-day expenses like food and doctor visits, according to a 2007 study by the National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare, a health-care coordination program. Should that elderly parent need to be put in a full-time facility, the costs rise exponentially. The average annual cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home is $69,715, while the average cost of an assisted living facility is $36,372 a year, according to a 2008 MetLife survey.

Don’t expect much help from the government or insurers. Medicare will only cover the total cost of staying in a skilled nursing facility for up to 20 days and won’t cover the cost of an assisted-living facility or home care at all, says Mary Winners, owner of About Senior Solutions, a referral service and advocacy organization in Monrovia, Calif.

In fact, without long-term-care insurance, which typically covers the cost of nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and in-house care, the last years of a senior’s life can be financially devastating for everyone involved.”

You can read the rest of the article here.