Requirements for long-term care insurance
As with any supplementary insurance, interested parties have to answer a lot of questions about their health. Older people find it particularly difficult to get supplementary insurance, especially when they need it. Some insurers such as Helsana therefore offer long-term care insurance without checking.
However, Helsana is currently heavily criticized, as the waiting period is two years, during which many older people use up their assets or even die. In addition, people receive the CURA automatically from Helsana when they reach retirement age, the monthly costs here are CHF 30. If this is not wanted, you must log out.
Therefore, the question arises: Does long-term care insurance make sense?
Nursing home care costs
The long-term care costs in the old people's home are borne largely by the cantonal and insurance contributions, but the cost of ownership, which those affected still have to pay, often rises to six figures. Experts therefore advise against taking out long-term care insurance.
The reasons are
- Cost / benefit calculation does not work
- Two-year waiting period
- High cost of ownership, use up of assets
Long-term care insurance pays off for the wealthy
Only wealthy people benefit from long-term care insurance because they never receive supplementary benefits and save the inheritance for their offspring.
The monthly cost of care can be between 6,000 and 8,000 francs. The compulsory basic insurance of the Swiss health insurance companies takes care of the medical services of care cases without time limit. This does not include catering, infrastructure, cleaning and building uses, which can be covered by supplementary insurance.
Private nursing care insurance
Those who have certain assets and are interested in private long-term care insurance can opt for property protection to insure the risky long-term care privately. It is advisable to draw up a financial plan and, as a precautionary measure, to determine whether income and expenditure coincide with retirement age.
The following factors may have to be added:
taking | expenditure |
- pension benefits from AHV and pension fund, - earned income from younger partners, - anticipated investment income, - rental income or similar | - expenditure for maintaining the living standard of the partner (and possibly other persons), - Taxes - the privately paid care costs in the long-term care case (in the desired long-term care standard) |
If the bottom line is a gap in income, those affected have to decide how they want to close it if they do not opt for private insurance. There are two ways to do this: Either the income gap is achieved by using one's own wealth. This variant is worthwhile for very rich pensioners, for whom these costs are not significant.
Or a private long-term care insurance is chosen, which would pay a tax-free pension in the event of cases to cover the care costs. The contributions to the insurance company reduce the wealth, but the premium is often covered by the income after retirement.
For more meaningful long-term care insurance: new solutions are required
Insurance companies should present new solutions so that long-term care insurance is even more profitable and affordable in the long term. One example is an offer from the EGK, which presents modular, buildable policies that allow policyholders to put together their own protection.
In this case, for example, it is possible to combine a semi-private model for the hospital with a high coverage in the case of care. There is also talk of long-term care insurance as a savings version. However, the regulation would have to be mandatory in order to function in general. The future will show to what extent ideas like these will prevail.
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