I am often asked about the optimal age to purchase long-term care insurance. My answer is that it depends on what you want long-term care insurance to accomplish.

If you want to truly be covered against the high costs of long-term care at all times you should purchase this insurance as soon as (1) you have assets that need to be protected and (2) you can afford the premiums.

It would be wise for even young people to consider long-term care insurance if they meet this criteria because disability is not limited to any age boundaries. It can strike at any age as a result of sports accidents, auto accidents, strokes, brain injuries, etc.

In fact, almost 40% of patients receiving long-term care are under the age of 65. This is a sober warning that we are all at risk for some kind of disabling incident or illness at any point in our life. It can strike suddenly and without advance notice.

Many financial planners are more concerned with having their clients protect themselves in retirement instead. And it is true that your chances of requiring long-term care services due to aging increase dramatically in retirement years.

So if you are mainly concerned with protecting assets for retirement, what age makes the most economical sense to begin seriously considering the purchase of long-term care insurance?

I usually recommend somewhere between the age of forty-five and fifty-five. There are two main reasons for this:

 The premiums for long-term care insurance are about as low as they ever will be during this period between forty-five and fifty-five and rate increases from one year to the next are relatively small.

 Most people usually still enjoy a measure of good health at this stage in life and therefore they can get additional premium discounts for having a good health history. They can lock in these lower premium rates for the remainder of their life.

After the age of fifty-five premiums start to accelerate more rapidly and change dramatically from year to year in a person’s mid-sixties.

In all cases the course of financial wisdom is to buy earlier rather than later.