Have you asked your Medicare plan clients about STC?

Most Medicare Advantage plans will help with the costs, but the client still has to pay a portion of the bill, and this can range anywhere from $50 per day to $200 per day – depending on the company and where the client lives. If the client wants to recuperate at home, Medicare won't pay anything. All of this usually comes as a huge shock to the client who thinks they were 100% covered when they bought their MA or MedSupp coverage.

Short-term-care coverage is not meant to take the place of a traditional long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy. It is meant to plug the gaps that exist in a Medicare Supplement, Medicare Advantage or LTCI policy.

Coverage can range anywhere from 30 days all the way up to 360 days. Underwriting is simplified, no special LTC training is required and policies are usually issued in less than 2 weeks.

More importantly, this is coverage your clients don't currently have. For instance, a 90-day policy might not sound like much, but to a person who only has $30,000 to $40,000 in life savings, paying $15,000 to $18,000 out of their own pocket would be a huge loss.

Even when consumers own traditional LTC policies, they probably don't realize that someone is going to have to certify that they'll need care for at least 90 days before that policy will pay a dime.

That's because – as the name implies – long-term care insurance is designed to pay for the long-term claim.

So you can see, there really isn't anything that will help your clients pay for their short-term care needs. That's where you come in.

If you are selling Medicare Advantage plans, short-term care should be part of every discussion you have.

The most successful agents package STC right along with a hospital indemnity plan and a dental/vision/hearing plan.

When you do this, you have not only saved your client money on their monthly insurance premiums, but you have given them more complete protection than they had before – all for a fraction of the cost.

You have turned that person from a just a "sale" into a "client" who will remember that you went the extra mile for them.

In this day and age where so much of the insurance market is simply price-driven – the more products you have in the house, the less likely it is that another agent can come along behind you and take your clients.

The downside to short-term care is that it is not available in every state. States like California, Connecticut, New York and Texas are unlikely to ever approve a short term care plan for their residents.

Some states have approved the product as non-tax-qualified LTC coverage. In those states, a carrier can offer only the 360-day plan. But in most of the country these policies are available right now. Talk to your managing general agent to see which carriers you can offer.

Even after the AEP, you can still go back to all of your clients and show them how a short-term care policy can work with their current coverage.

For as little as $15 per month, you can bring meaningful coverage to your clients and give them the ability to get the care they need, when they need it, without spending their life savings.

See also:

• Short-Term Care Policies: Who's Got 'Em?
• The Short Term Care Revolution
• How things are shaping up in the LTCI market