Zurich Insurance is set to introduce a new life insurance product that will help to cover the costs of long term care, should people develop an illness that requires it.
Alzheimer’s is one example of the conditions that the product will help everyday people to tackle. The price of care for a person with Alzheimer’s is huge, dwarfed only by the strain, stress and sense of loss placed on their healthy relatives. These relatives will have to deal with the pain of having someone in the family lose their mental faculties, as well as fund care for them, should it become necessary.
This insurance product could alleviate at least some of the stress and financial worry, by reducing, the majority of the financial issues related long term care.
This is a compromise for Ministers who have been campaigning for this kind of life insurance to become available on the market for some time. Although long term cover would greatly benefit many people, the product to be put on offer by Zurich is not as comprehensive as hoped.
Cover will be paid, but only up to a set capital, and then it would fall once again on the shoulders of relatives to manage bills, which can easily extend into the tens of thousands of pounds per year. Although it is a long term cover, it is set by a paid amount, and not by how long cover is required. However, Zurich still have not finalised details.
The market for this will be stimulated by a payout cap of £72,000, above which the state will pay for the cover.
With an ageing population, the cost of care for those too old to work is only going to become steadily more debilitating to the economy. Making care funds private will help to prevent this effect, it is hoped.