Interesting article on today's Barrons

(for WSJ subscribers only)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-whites-only-scholarship,0,5464197,print.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

Is long-term insurance for you? Clearly, it isn't the most exciting financial product. "Nobody likes to buy it because it doesn't build equity," explains Lawrence Levine of LTL Insurance Concepts, an insurance broker in Melville, N.Y. Indeed, if you can set aside enough money to cover three or four years of care -- perhaps putting about $250,000 in an interest-earning account -- you don't need the insurance.

<snip>

If you do decide to buy long-term care insurance, it almost always pays to get it sooner rather than later. For example, at today's prices, a 40-year-old married man might pay $1,419 a year for a policy covering three years of care, versus $5,138 for a 70-year-old married man. If each goes into a nursing home at 84, the younger man will have paid a total of $62,430, while the older one would have paid $71,932. Each will have paid less than the current cost of just one year in a nursing home in some states. (Premiums can be 20% to 40% higher for singles because they are apt to "go to claim" more often than married people with spouses and children who can help them.)

</snip>

intercst