" We all have to think about planning for long-term care as part of our overall financial plan. For many people, it is the missing piece. We’re mandated to have car insurance. If we have a mortgage, we have homeowners’ insurance. Then, most of us will obtain our health insurance either through an employer or through an exchange. But long-term care planning is something that most of us have to tackle on our own. If you have a family member who has had Alzheimer’s or dementia, it’s especially important for you to begin your planning sooner rather than later. We all have priorities in terms of looking at our overall financial plan, but don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Certainly having some long-term care insurance would be better than not having anything at all. Most people begin looking at long-term care insurance about a decade before they retire. Most of my clients who are investigating whether this makes sense or not are probably in their 50s or so. I would say that many individuals can buy some coverage for as little as maybe $2,000 a year, depending upon how much coverage they want to have, and that would be for long-term care insurance policy. There are short-term care policies, which will provide benefits that will be for a year or less that can be less expensive. "