Elderly care insurance

ruth-crazynurse

Now I'm approaching 50 I'm wondering where to start looking into insurance to pay for residential/nursing care when I'm old and grey. Can't find anything on the website. Any ideas?

Quentin

Talk to a Financial Adviser about how to fund this yourself - you can't just buy insurance against needing residential care

System

Not directly, but I do suspect it is going to be very very expensive.

My mother when aged about 65 bought an old-age care bond for I think £100,000. She was in perfect health then, and the bond was invested by the insurance company and was guaranteed to pay £25,000 pa in the event of her ever needing care. At the time that would have been a sufficient amount. The bond had a cash-in value at any time, diminishing with age, and when she died 20 years later having not needed care, the residual value was £10,000.
So it had cost her perhaps £90,000 plus lost investment growth, but it could at most have paid out 20 years at £25,000 pa, ie £500,000.

With hindsight it was a poor investment/insurance, and also would lamentably have failed to achieve its objective anyway - care home fees had doubled.