What is the “Daily Benefit” (a.k.a. “Monthly Benefit”) in a long-term care policy

The Daily Benefit is the amount of money your long-term care insurance policy can pay for each day that you receive qualified care.

The Daily Benefit is the single-most important feature in your long-term care policy.  Choose it wisely!

The Daily Benefit is sometimes referred to as the “Starting Daily Benefit” or the “Original Daily Benefit” because your Daily Benefit will grow according to whichever Inflation Benefit you choose for your long-term care policy.  (Or it won’t grow at all if you choose not to have any Inflation Benefit protection in your LTC policy.)

You choose how much you want your Starting Daily Benefit to be. (You also choose the Inflation Benefit.)

Most long-term care policies have many choices for the Starting Daily Benefit.  You can choose a Starting Daily Benefit as low as $50 per day to as high as $500 per day.  The choices for the Daily Benefit are usually offered in $10 increments.

The higher your Starting Daily Benefit, the higher the premium.

With some policies the Daily Benefit is referred to as a Monthly Benefit.  For example, a long-term care policy with a $200 Daily Benefit is similar to a $6,000 Monthly Benefit.

Make sure you also read:

2 “gotchas” you need to watch out for you when choosing your Daily Benefit

and

How does your choice of Daily Benefit affect the cost of your long-term care policy?