Long-Term Care Planning
What's your plan to pay for long-term care?
More than 70% of people turning 65 today will need some level of long-term care. Most retirement plans have no line item for it. Here's one way to cover the risk without giving up the money if the care is never needed.
Schedule a CallSource: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "How Much Care Will You Need?", April 29, 2022.
The Gap
Medicare wasn't built for this
Most long-term care expenses aren't covered by Medicare or by supplemental health insurance. They come out of personal assets. When the assets run short, the fallback is usually a spouse or an adult child — and that carries its own financial, physical, and emotional cost.
is the median cost of a private nursing home room — and "today" is the operative word. These costs keep climbing.
Genworth/CareScout, 2024. Monthly U.S. medians; annual figures are monthly × 12. Costs vary considerably by region.
Check long-term care costs in your area — click hereAnd traditional coverage has gotten harder to buy. The average premium for a couple at age 55 runs about $5,025 a year. Fewer than fifteen carriers remain in the standalone long-term care market. And if you never file a claim, the residual value of the policy is zero — which is the objection most people raise first, and it's a fair one.
Sources: SmartAsset, January 2025; LTC Tree, January 2025; Milliman, March 2025.
Where This Fits
Long-term care is the H in Retire R.I.G.H.T.(E.)
Our 5-Pillar System looks at all five together, because a decision in one changes the others. Healthcare is where long-term care lives — and it's the pillar most retirement plans leave blank.
Income
Planning
Why it can't be solved in isolation. Money set aside for care is money not producing retirement income. Money left exposed to care costs is money your estate may never pass on. And how you fund it changes what you owe in tax. The approach below is worth understanding precisely because it touches four of the five pillars at once.
The Approach
Bridge® by EquiTrust
Bridge is a fixed index annuity with a Long-Term Care Rider and the NeverStop® Health Coaching & Rewards Program. Three parts, each doing a different job:
The annuity
Tax-deferred growth potential with protection from market losses. This is what your money does if long-term care is never needed.
The Long-Term Care Rider
Monthly benefits for qualified long-term care services for up to 60 months. Indemnity-based — no receipts or invoices to submit.1
NeverStop®
A health coaching program through Assured Allies. Completing simple actions earns Wellness Credits — real dollars added to your care benefit.2
No one is declined. Bridge provides 100% approval for long-term care benefits regardless of health issues.3 No medical records are required. Many applicants receive an instant decision after a few health questions; some complete a 30-minute video interview from home. Underwriting is optional — opt out and you're assigned the Secure class automatically.
The Math
How the long-term care benefit is calculated
Your Long-Term Care Benefit Base is every premium you pay in the first five years multiplied by your Coverage Ratio — a percentage set by your age and underwriting class. That base then grows 3% a year for up to 20 years, or until you file a claim.4 Monthly benefits are paid from that base over up to 60 months.
Estimate a Benefit Base
Bridge Coverage Ratios are published for issue ages 50 to 80.
Preferred and Standard require underwriting. Opting out assigns Secure.
The Benefit Base grows 3% annually for up to 20 years.
Estimated Benefit Base at claim
$568,925
Monthly benefit, up to 60 months: $9,482
Estimate only, shown for illustration. Assumes a single premium with no additional deposits and no withdrawals, and excludes Wellness Credits, rider fees, and the four-year vesting schedule described below. Coverage Ratios vary by age, underwriting class and state, and the Coverage Ratio is 100% if the Inflation Rider is selected. Your actual figures come from a proposal prepared for you. This is not a quote and not an offer of coverage.
The estimate above is a national example. To see the real figure for your age and state, let's run your actual numbers together.
Illustrations
Three ways this plays out
These are EquiTrust's published examples, not Centennial clients. Each assumes a non-guaranteed 3.0% credited rate.
Derek, 55
Funded from savings- Initial premium
- $100,000
- Class
- Preferred
- Coverage Ratio
- 325%
- Initial Benefit Base
- $325,000
- Base at claim, age 70
- $506,339
- Wellness Credits
- $47,871
- Monthly benefit
- $9,237
Mike, 65
Adding premium, years 2–5- Initial premium
- $50,000
- Added, years 2–5
- $10,000/yr
- Class
- Preferred
- Coverage Ratio
- 315%
- Base, end of year 1
- $162,225
- Base, end of year 5
- $318,323
Carol, 70
1035 exchange- Initial premium
- $250,000
- Class
- Secure
- Coverage Ratio
- 135%
- Initial Benefit Base
- $337,500
- Base at claim, age 75
- $392,994
- Monthly benefit
- $6,550
Why Carol's case is worth a second look. She held a non-qualified annuity carrying $150,000 of taxable gain. Cashing it out to pay for care would have cost roughly $33,000 in tax at a 22% rate. A 1035 exchange into Bridge moved the money without triggering that. Whether it applies to you depends on your own tax position — that's a conversation, not a web page.
Every situation is different. Walk through yours with a Centennial advisor and find out whether Bridge is a fit for you.
Before You Decide
The parts people skip over
Anything that sounds like it has no downside has a downside somewhere. These are the ones worth reading before you get interested.
What it costs
The Long-Term Care Rider carries a fee deducted monthly from your Accumulation Value, based on your attained age and underwriting class. Premium received in the first year is subject to a 1% premium fee. NeverStop enrollment is automatic and carries a $100 annual fee charged to your Accumulation Value at the start of each contract year.
Benefits vest over four years
During the first four years, benefits are subject to a vesting schedule of 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, then 100%. Vesting applies to the Net Amount at Risk — the difference between your LTC Benefit Base and your Accumulation Value. In plain terms: the full benefit is not there on day one.
Surrender charges run ten years
Surrender charges apply during the first ten contract years as a percentage of Accumulation Value, declining annually: 9, 8, 7, 6.5, 5.5, 4.5, 3.5, 2.5, 1.5 and 0.5%.5 You may withdraw up to 10% of Accumulation Value each year after the first contract year without charges. Early surrenders or withdrawals above 10% may also be subject to a Market Value Adjustment. This is not money to plan on needing in the near term.
How you qualify for benefits
Benefits become payable once you are deemed chronically ill and a licensed health practitioner completes a plan of care. Chronically ill means certified within the preceding 12 months as unable to perform at least two of six activities of daily living for at least 90 days, or as requiring substantial supervision due to cognitive impairment. Ongoing benefits require annual physician certification, and the monthly amount is set at the time of claim.
What care is covered
Home health care, assisted living, adult day health care, nursing home care, home modifications, and medical equipment and supplies that assist with activities of daily living. Because benefits are indemnity-based, you choose the services — including compensating family caregivers.
Exclusions and guarantees
Exclusions and limitations apply if illness, impairment or death is due to alcoholism, suicide or self-inflicted injury. All guarantees are based on the claims-paying ability of EquiTrust Life Insurance Company. You are guaranteed to receive no less than 87.5% of premiums — less rider fees and partial withdrawals — accumulated at the Minimum Guaranteed Contract Rate.
Included at no additional cost
A Nursing Home Waiver giving access to Accumulation Value without surrender charges or MVA after 90 consecutive days of confinement, beginning in the second contract year. A Terminal Illness Rider waiving charges on a withdrawal of up to 75% of Accumulation Value. And a death benefit paying the full Accumulation Value to your beneficiaries without surrender charges or MVA.
What Happens Next
A conversation costs twenty minutes.
Not having one can cost far more.
Bridge may fit your plan, or it may not — the only way to know is to look at your own numbers. Here's what a conversation about it looks like. No pressure, and no obligation to go any further.
Talk it through
A short conversation about whether long-term care is a gap worth solving for you in the first place — given your health, your family, and what you'd want if care were ever needed. No illustration yet — just a straight answer on whether it's worth a closer look.
See your numbers
If it's worth a closer look, we run your actual Bridge figures and walk through them together — your premium, your coverage ratio, the monthly benefit, and what your money does if care is never needed. Real numbers for your age and situation, not a web estimate.
Decide
If Bridge fits, we help you put it in place. If it doesn't, you've spent nothing but twenty minutes — and you'll know exactly where you stand on long-term care either way.
Next Step
Let's find out whether this fits
A short conversation is enough to tell whether Bridge belongs in your plan — or whether something else does. No cost, no obligation.
Schedule a CallOr call 512-265-5000 (Austin · Georgetown) · 210-310-3075 (San Antonio)