Long-Term Care Insurance

Long-term care insurance covers the cost of extended personal care: nursing homes, assisted living, or in-home help with daily activities. It fills a major gap, because regular health insurance and Medicare cover very little long-term custodial care, and the costs can be substantial and prolonged late in life.

It's a genuinely hard planning decision. Premiums are significant and have historically risen, policies are complex, and some people choose to self-insure by earmarking assets instead. Whether it fits depends on your assets, family history, and risk tolerance — and it ties directly to the late-life upturn in the retirement spending smile.