America's Health Insurance Plans today drew attention to Long Term Care Insurance Awareness Week with new data on lack of LTC insurance awareness.
The LTC public education week, endorsed by the U.S. House of Representatives, started Sunday.
Researchers at AHIP, Washington, today released results of a telephone survey of 2,000 U.S. boomers.
About 23% of the boomers interviewed have no private LTC insurance but believe that they do, AHIP officials report.
Perhaps because of that confusion, many boomers "aren't factoring expenses for long term care into their retirement planning and are missing an opportunity to protect themselves," says AHIP President Karen Ignagni.
Even among older boomers – those who are already 60 or 61, or who are nearing age 60 – only 25% said they are "very familiar" with LTC insurance, and 41% said they have not discussed LTC care at all in the past 12 months, AHIP researchers say.
