Long-Term Care Insurance Calculator
The policy and when care starts
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- United States — insurance is regulated state by state, so the rules behind a premium are your state's, not a federal schedule
- Rules and time period
- Premiums, limits and deductibles are the figures you enter. Health plan cost-sharing caps, Medicare amounts and state filings all reset annually.
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Rates, required coverages and available discounts differ by where you live. Your premium is set by an insurer's own underwriting — driving record, claims history, credit-based insurance score where permitted, the property itself — and only a quote is binding. What a policy pays depends on its exclusions and limits, not on this estimate.
- Source links checked
- Sep 19, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Enter your age now and the age at which care might start. The gap between them does two jobs: it is the number of years you would pay premiums, and it is the number of years an inflation rider has to compound. Both matter enormously, which is why buying earlier means paying longer but arriving with a much larger pool.
- 02
Enter the daily benefit in today's money and the number of years of benefit the policy would pay. Multiplied together with 365 days, those two give the pool the policy is sold as — the total it will pay out, not a promise about how long care will last.
- 03
Enter the annual premium you have been quoted. Traditional long-term care premiums are not guaranteed, and insurers have raised rates on in-force policies repeatedly, so treat a fixed figure here as an assumption you are testing rather than a commitment the insurer has made.
- 04
Open Advanced options and set the inflation rider against the rate at which care costs are rising. This single comparison drives the most useful result on the page: if the rider compounds more slowly than care inflates, the pool loses ground every year even while its dollar value climbs.
- 05
Read the pool at the age care might start, then the shortfall beneath it, then the premiums it took to get there. The pool is what the policy would pay; the shortfall is what the same years of care would cost beyond it; the premiums are what you spent for a benefit you may never claim.
Formula
The pool in today's money = the daily benefit × 365 × the years of benefit. The pool at the age care might start = that figure compounded by the inflation rider for the number of years between your age now and that age, so pool = daily benefit × 365 × years of benefit × (1 + rider)^years. The premiums paid to get there = the annual premium × the same number of years, with no compounding, which is the asymmetry the page is built to show: the benefit grows exponentially while the cost grows linearly. The cost of the same care at that age = the same starting pool compounded instead by the care inflation rate, and the shortfall is the amount by which that exceeds the pool, floored at zero. The net benefit if care is needed = the pool − the premiums paid. The years of premium the pool covers = the pool ÷ the annual premium, a leverage ratio rather than a length of time.
Example
A 58-year-old is quoted $2,900 a year for a policy paying $200 a day for three years, with a 3% compound inflation rider, and plans against care starting at 82. The pool today is $200 × 365 × 3 = $219,000. Over the 24 years to age 82 the rider compounds it to $445,182, while the premiums add up to $69,600 with no compounding at all — so if care is needed the pool exceeds everything paid in by $375,582. The schedule shows the two lines diverging: at 63 the pool is $253,881 against $14,500 paid, at 68 it is $294,318 against $29,000, at 73 $341,195 against $43,500, and at 78 $395,538 against $58,000. The catch is the inflation assumption. With care costs rising at 4% a year rather than 3%, the same three years of care would cost $561,364 by age 82, leaving a $116,182 shortfall against the pool the policy built. Raising the rider to 4% closes it exactly — the pool reaches $561,364 — and dropping the rider to zero opens it to $342,364.
Definitions
- Your age now
- The age at which the policy is issued. It sets both how many premiums you pay and how many years an inflation rider has to compound.
- Age care might start
- A planning assumption, not a prediction. Moving it later lengthens both the premium stream and the compounding, so it pushes the pool and the total cost up together.
- Daily benefit today
- The most the policy pays per day of care, in current dollars. An inflation rider raises it each year; without one it stays at this figure for the life of the policy.
- Years of benefit
- How long the daily benefit would pay at the full daily rate. Multiplied out it defines the pool, and most policies pay until the pool is exhausted rather than for a fixed span.
- Annual premium
- What the policy costs each year. Guaranteed renewable but not guaranteed level — insurers can seek class-wide rate increases through state regulators.
- Inflation rider
- An optional feature compounding the daily benefit each year. Over a long horizon it is the difference between a policy that keeps its value and one that quietly loses it.
- Care cost inflation
- The rate at which the cost of care itself rises. Compared against the rider to show whether the pool is gaining or losing ground.
- Benefit pool
- The total the policy would pay out over the life of a claim. The headline figure, and what a policy is really sold as.
- Elimination period
- Days of care you pay for yourself before benefits begin — the policy's deductible, expressed in time rather than dollars.
- Custodial care
- Help with everyday activities such as bathing, dressing and eating. Medicare does not pay for it, which is the gap this product exists to fill.
Frequently asked questions
How big a benefit pool would a long-term care policy actually build?
On this page's defaults — buying at 58 with care assumed from 82, a $200 daily benefit for 3 years and a 3% compound inflation rider — the pool is $219,000 in today's money and $445,182 by age 82, after 24 years of $2,900 premiums totalling $69,600. The pool grows because the rider compounds the daily benefit every year; the premiums do not grow, which is what makes the arithmetic look favorable in isolation.
Does a 3% inflation rider keep up with the cost of care?
Not if care inflates faster, and the page is built to show exactly that. With the rider at 3% against care inflation of 4%, the pool reaches $445,182 while three years of the same care has risen to $561,364 — a shortfall of $116,182 on a policy bought specifically to cover it. Set the rider to 4% so the two match and the pool reaches $561,364 and the shortfall disappears. The rider is not a detail; over 24 years one percentage point is worth over $116,000 of coverage.
What happens with no inflation rider at all?
The pool stands still while the cost of care does not. Set the rider to zero on the defaults and the pool is still $219,000 at age 82 — the same figure it was at 58 — against three years of care that by then costs $561,364. The shortfall is $342,364, meaning the policy would cover well under half of what it was bought to cover. A policy without inflation protection is a policy that quietly shrinks for every year it is in force.
Is long-term care insurance worth it?
The page gives you the two figures the question turns on rather than an answer, because the answer depends on something no calculator knows: whether you will need care. On the defaults, if care is needed the pool exceeds the premiums paid by $375,582, which is a very large return on $69,600. If care is never needed, a traditional policy pays nothing back at all. That asymmetry is the whole product. It is insurance against a low-probability, high-cost event, and judging it by expected value alone misses why people buy it.
Does Medicare pay for long-term care?
Not for the kind this policy covers. Medicare pays for skilled nursing care for a limited period following a qualifying hospital stay, and for some home health care, but it does not pay for custodial care — help with bathing, dressing, eating and moving about, which is what most long-term care actually consists of and what a long-term care policy is written to cover. Medicaid does pay for custodial care, but only after your assets have been spent down to that state's limit. This gap is the reason the product exists.
Does buying later cost less overall?
Fewer premiums, but a smaller pool, and the page shows both sides. Buying at 65 with care assumed from 85 gives 20 years rather than 24: premiums total $58,000 instead of $69,600, but the pool reaches only $395,538 rather than $445,182. You saved $11,600 and gave up $49,644 of benefit. In practice waiting costs more than that comparison suggests, because premiums are quoted by age at issue and an older applicant is quoted a higher annual figure than the $2,900 held constant here — and because a diagnosis in the meantime can make you uninsurable.