Your overall estate plan should include a way to pay for the high costs of a possible catastrophic illness, because health care and nursing home expenses can quickly eat up an estate. Long Term Care insurance is designed to help pay for nursing home care, assisted living care or home health care expenses. This fast growing type of insurance can protect you and your assets against the high cost of long-term care. Most policies pay benefits when long-term care is prescribed by a physician as medically necessary or when someone can no longer physically or mentally take care of basic needs. Here again, we have options. Most Planners don’t ever mention that we can get every premium paid for Long Term Care back when we pass on – if we choose that type of policy. For others a medical history can haunt them and disqualify them from getting reasonable rates, so here we will offer a type of policy that is a permanent product with minimum underwriting. With these types of policies, there is a residual value even if the premiums are no longer paid and the benefits can be three to four times greater than the premium paid. In this sense your money can be greatly leveraged to pay for Long Term Care.