Elimination Period
An elimination period is a time between qualifying for Long-Term Care Insurance benefits and receiving them. These are also referred to as waiting periods.
The Complete Glossary on Long-Term Care
Explore clear, easy-to-understand definitions of the terms and concepts that shape long-term care planning. Whether you’re researching coverage options, care types, or planning terms, our glossary helps you make sense of the details so you can plan with confidence.
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Restoration of Benefits
This is a rider on a Long-Term Care Insurance policy that allows for a partially used benefit to be fully restored if a person recovers and no longer requires care for a specified period of time, typically 180 days.
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Care Types
Estate Recovery
Estate recovery is when the government takes part of an individual's estate after they pass away to reimburse itself for the cost of Medicaid long-term care.
Rate Stability Rules
Developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), these are rules put in place to make it more difficult for insurance companies to raise premiums on Long-Term Care Insurance.
Lifetime Limits
Sometimes referred to as “Maximum Lifetime Benefit” it is the set limit on the amount of benefits that a Long-Term Care policy will pay. These limits are set in terms of either years or dollars, but not both.
Cognitive Impairment
Cognitive Impairment or cognitive loss describes when an individual starts to have problems remembering things be it a short-term or long-term memory. It also impacts a person’s ability to learn new things, the ability to concentrate or make decisions that affect an individual’s everyday life.
Informal Care
This is care provided by family or friends. Some Long-Term Care policies provide benefits for Informal care. Whether benefits are available may depend on the relationship of the caregiver to the insured, and on whether the caregiver lives with the insured.
Step-Down
A policyholder can reduce the monthly or daily benefit, or the total pool of money the policy will pay or increase the elimination period.
Bed Reservations Benefit
If you are receiving benefits under a Long-Term Care policy and you need to leave a facility (assisted living facility, memory care facility, or nursing home) the policy will continue to pay to “reserve” your room or bed at the facility even though you are not there.
Pre-Existing Conditions
A pre-existing condition is a health condition that an individual had before they applied for Long-Term Care Insurance.
Simple Inflation
A rider on a Long-Term Care policy where the benefit increases by a fixed amount per year based on the original starting amount. For example, with 5% simple inflation, $100 a day would increase each year by $5.00.
Tax-Qualified Policies
Buyers of Tax-Qualified (TQ) plans can deduct the premiums if they itemize deductions on their federal tax return based on their Adjusted Gross Income itemization requirement.
Hands-on Assistance
This refers to the physical assistance of another person, without which the person would be unable to perform an activity of daily living (ADL).