Long-Term Care Planning That Protects the Rest of Your Retirement Plan
A complete retirement plan goes beyond investments — it protects what you've built. Long-term care is one of the largest financial risks in retirement and one of the least planned for. Nationally, assisted living now runs a median of about $6,200 per month, and a semi-private room in a nursing home runs closer to $9,600. Without a strategy in place, a single care event can significantly alter a retirement plan that took decades to build.
At Heartland Retirement Group, our dedicated insurance department works directly alongside your financial planning team — not as a separate sales function, but as an integrated part of how we build and manage your overall retirement strategy. Every recommendation is weighed against your income needs, legacy goals, and what actually makes sense for your situation.
Protection is part of the plan
Integrating Insurance Into Your Wealth Strategy
What We Cover
Insurance & Care Planning Solutions
We design protection strategies that integrate seamlessly with your retirement income and investment plans.
Life Insurance Planning
Life insurance can play a role well beyond working years. We review your coverage to ensure it still serves your goals in retirement.
What we help you evaluate:
- Whether existing policies are still needed or should be adjusted
- Beneficiary designations for alignment with your estate plan
- Using life insurance for wealth transfer or charitable giving
Long-Term Care Planning
Extended care is one of the most significant unplanned costs in retirement, and Medicare does not cover it. Medicare covers short-term skilled nursing care following a hospital stay — it does not cover ongoing custodial care, which is what most retirees actually need when health declines. Medicaid is available, but only after personal assets are largely exhausted.
We help families understand their options and build a plan that keeps a care event from derailing everything else.
We help you evaluate:
- Traditional long-term care insurance policies — benefits, premiums, and when they make sense
- Hybrid life/LTC products that provide coverage if care is needed, or a death benefit if it isn't
- Self-funding strategies for families with sufficient assets who prefer to retain flexibility
- How the cost of care where you plan to retire changes the amount you need to earmark
What Long-Term Care Actually Costs — and Why Your State Changes the Answer
According to the 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey, national median costs run:
- Assisted living: approximately $6,200 per month, or $74,400 per year
- Nursing home, semi-private room: approximately $9,600 per month, or $114,975 per year
- Nursing home, private room: approximately $10,800 per month, or $129,575 per year
- In-home care: roughly $35 per hour, or about $80,000 per year at 44 hours per week
Those are national medians, and the state-level spread is enormous. A semi-private nursing home room runs a median of roughly $5,600 per month in the least expensive states and multiples of that in the most expensive — a difference of well over $100,000 a year for the same level of care. Where you plan to retire, and where your family is, changes the number you need to plan around.
At national medians, two to three years of care can represent $250,000 or more — enough to materially change what's available for income, for a surviving spouse, or for the
legacy you planned to leave. The question isn't whether to plan for long-term care. It's which approach fits your situation and your geography.
Income Protection Strategies
Unexpected events can threaten your retirement income. We help build safeguards to keep your plan intact.
What we help you evaluate:
- Disability insurance (for those still working)
- Spousal income replacement strategies
- Maintaining liquidity to handle emergencies
Insurance & Long-Term Care Questions, Answered
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need long-term care insurance?
Not everyone does, and the right answer depends on your assets, income, health, family circumstances, and where you expect to receive care. For some people, traditional or hybrid LTC coverage makes financial sense. Others may be better served by earmarking assets to self-fund. We work through the options against your actual retirement income plan — not a generic checklist.
Does Medicare cover long-term care?
No — and this is one of the most common misconceptions in retirement planning. Medicare covers short-term skilled care after a hospital stay, typically up to 100 days. It does not cover ongoing custodial care, which is the type most people need when they can no longer manage daily activities independently. Planning for that gap is exactly what this part of your retirement strategy addresses.
How much should I plan to set aside for care?
It depends on the type of care, the duration, and the state. National medians run about $6,200 per month for assisted living and about $9,600 per month for a semi-private nursing home room, but state medians vary by a factor of three or more. We model care costs into your income plan using figures for where you actually expect to be, rather than a national average that may not resemble your situation.
What's the advantage of hybrid life/long-term care products?
Hybrid products give you optionality. If you need care, the policy covers it. If you don't, a death benefit passes to your beneficiaries. This flexibility addresses a common concern — that paying premiums for coverage you may never use means the money is "lost." With a hybrid product, the benefit goes somewhere either way.
What if I already have life insurance — do I still need LTC coverage?
Maybe not as much, and maybe in a different form. Some life insurance policies can be converted or restructured to include long-term care riders. We review your existing coverage to determine whether it still fits your current goals and whether there are more efficient ways to address the care risk within your overall plan.
How does your insurance department work with my financial planning team?
Heartland has a dedicated licensed insurance department that operates as part of your overall advisory relationship — not as a separate product sales desk. Your insurance advisor and your financial planner work from the same retirement plan, so protection strategies are built to fit your income, tax, and legacy goals rather than evaluated in isolation.
What This Page Covers — and What It Doesn't
The planning described here is about protecting a retirement income plan from the cost of extended care. It is not Medicare enrollment, Medicare Advantage or Supplement selection, prescription drug plan comparison, or final expense coverage.
If that's what you're looking for, our affiliated insurance division,
Heartland Retirement Group, handles Medicare and senior insurance products and works with agents across the country.
