- 15830 Venture Ln, Eden Prairie, MN 55344
- (952) 937-9127
Your Long-Term Care Plan Should Work Whether You Use It or Not.
Hybrid policies changed everything. Your rates are guaranteed never to
increase, benefits are paid to you tax-free in cash, and if you never need care, you
will get money back. Plus, there are even more valuable benefits and options
available for you to explore
WHAT'S CHANGED
Hybrid policies fixed the biggest complaint about traditional long-term care insurance policies.
Ten years ago, rates were not locked in and could increase over time. Benefits could not be used to pay family or friends. If you never needed care, you couldn’t get money back.
The industry caught up.
Today’s hybrid policies combine life insurance with long-term care benefits into a single plan. The money you put in is never lost — it either pays for your care or goes to your family as a death benefit. Premiums are locked. No surprises. We still offer traditional long-term care policies and LTC annuities too, because the right answer depends on your age, your health, and what you’re trying to protect. But most of our clients end up choosing a hybrid plan once they see how it works.
REAL NUMBERS
How Much Does Long-Term Care Insurance Cost in Minnesota?
The cost depends on your age, your health, and how much coverage you want.
Below are real ranges so you’re not going in blind:
Hybrid Plans
One of the most popular ways clients fund hybrid long-term care plans is through annual premiums of approximately $6,000 to $8,000 per year over a 10-year period. However, the greatest savings often come from making a single payment between $50,000 and $150,000, which can typically reduce the overall cost by 20% to 60%. That money doesn’t disappear — it’s growing inside the policy from day one.
Traditional LTC
Premiums are lower upfront. For a couple, you’re typically looking at $3,500 to $5,500 a year depending on how much coverage and inflation protection you want.
LTC Annuities
You’re not paying ongoing premiums — you’re repositioning money you already have (often $50,000 to $200,000 from a CD, savings account, or existing non-qualified annuity) into a plan that can significantly multiply your long-term care benefits. In many cases, gains from an existing non-qualified annuity may also be transferred and used for long-term care benefits tax-free.
Business Owners & Key Employees
Business owners and highly compensated employees may have additional planning opportunities available through long-term care insurance strategies.
Certain policies may offer:
- Potential business tax deductions
- Executive carve-out options
- Tax-advantaged benefit structures
- Protection for retirement assets and income
- Solutions designed for business succession and family protection
We help business owners, physicians, attorneys, and executives explore strategies that may help
reduce the financial impact of future care costs while maximizing available tax advantages.
How to Buy Long-Term Care Insurance
Here's how it works.
No paperwork until you're ready.
We talk.
Call or schedule online. We’ll spend about 30 minutes learning about your situation — your age, health, what you’re trying to protect, and what concerns you most. That’s it. No application, no commitment.
30-Minute Zoom Call
Within one or two days, we’ll have side-by-side comparisons of 2–5 plans from different
carriers, tailored to what we discussed. We’ll walk through each one in plain language until
everything makes sense.
You decide.
Explore Your Long-Term Care Options
Backed by relationships with the carriers you trust
These are just a few of the insurance companies we work with.
We offer traditional long-term care insurance, hybrid life/LTC plans, and long-term care annuities-giving you more choices to find the right fit.
Lincoln Financial – MoneyGuard® Fixed Advantage
A hybrid life insurance policy with long-term care benefits that offers flexibility by allowing clients to choose either reimbursement or indemnity (cash) benefit payments. There is no elimination period, and in many cases no medical exam is required
Nationwide – CareMatters® II / CareMatters Together
A hybrid life insurance policy with long-term care benefits that offers flexibility by allowing clients to choose either reimbursement or indemnity (cash) benefit payments. There is no elimination period, and in many cases no medical exam is required
Securian Financial – SecureCare™ IV
A hybrid long-term care policy offering indemnity (cash) benefits with a 90-day elimination period, paid retroactively beginning on day 91. Includes 100% international long-term care benefits, making it an excellent option for clients who travel or may live abroad. No medical exam is required.
OneAmerica – Asset Care®
A reimbursement-style hybrid long-term care policy with no elimination period for home health care and a 90-day elimination period for other types of qualified care. A medical exam is generally required as part of the underwriting process.
THE MOST POPULAR OPTION
Either way, your money stays with you.
If you eventually need long-term care
If you never need care
A hybrid life/LTC policy works like this: you fund it – one lump sum, ten annual payments, or spread over your lifetime. Your decision. You have the opportunity to add inflation protection at either 5% or 3%
compounding growth.
What most people don’t realize until we show them: many hybrid plans pay indemnity benefits. That means you get CASH, not Reimbursement. You decide how to spend it. You pick your caregiver — a home health aide, a family member, a friend from church. You stay in your house, on your terms.
NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL
Hybrid plans aren't the only answer. Here's when something else makes more sense.
Traditional Long-Term Care Insurance
LTC Annuities
Already sitting on savings in a CD or money market account that’s barely earning anything? An LTC annuity lets you reposition that money into a plan that multiplies it — typically two to three times — into long-term care benefits. Simplified health screening. No ongoing premiums. And if you never need care, any remaining contract value is available to your beneficiaries as a death benefit
Not sure which
approach fits?
When Should You Buy Long-Term Care Insurance?
The best time to plan is before your doctor finds something.
We get calls every week from people who waited six months too long. A new blood pressure medication. An elevated A1C. A knee replacement that’s now on their medical record. None of these are serious health problems — but they can shrink your options or raise your premiums significantly.
The best window is between 40 and 65.
That’s when you have the most carriers competing for your business, the most plan designs to choose from, and the lowest rates. But we regularly help people into their 70s and 80s find coverage. It depends on your health.
If you’re in your 40s and thinking “it’s too early” — it’s not. It’s actually when you get the best deal.
WHY IT MATTERS WHO YOU WORK WITH
A captive agent sells you their company's plan. We show you all of them.
Brian Emswiler has spent 33 years as an independent long-term care insurance advisor in Minnesota. Independent means he doesn’t work for any single insurance company. He works for you.
When you call a carrier directly, they’ll quote you their plan. When you call us, we compare plans across every major carrier — Lincoln, Nationwide, OneAmerica, Securian, Pacific Life, and others — and recommend the one that actually fits your numbers and your goals.
The price is identical whether you go through us or contact the carrier yourself. There’s no markup. Our compensation comes from the carrier, not from you. So the only reason to work with us is that we’ve done this thousands of times and we know which plans perform well for which situations.
AREA WE SERVE
Trusted Industry Expertise
Headquartered in the Midwest, we serve clients coast-to-coast. We know the country’s long-term care costs, state partnership programs, and which carriers have the strongest claims track records. You’re not getting an outsourced call center — you’re calling a dedicated insurance brokerage that has been advising families nationwide since 1994.
Understanding Assisted Living Facility Costs
We proudly serve clients nationwide, helping
individuals, families, and business owners plan for assisted living care with confidence. Headquartered in the Midwest, we provide long-term care insurance policies that protect you anywhere in the United
States, and many plans even provide benefits worldwide. We are also licensed in multiple states, including Florida, allowing us to continue serving clients wherever life takes them.
- Bemidji: $48,000/yr
- Moorhead: $53,000/yr
- Brainerd: $50,000/yr
- St. Cloud: $61,000/yr
- Minneapolis: $72,000/yr
- Rochester: $64,000 yr
- Worthington: $47,000/yr
- Worthington: $47,000/yr
- International Falls: $46,000/yr
- And surrounding areas
COMMON QUESTIONS
Answers to what we hear most.
What if I never need long-term care?
With a hybrid plan, your beneficiaries get the full amount as a tax-free death benefit. With an LTC annuity, any remaining contract value is available to your beneficiaries as a death benefit. With traditional LTC, premiums don’t return if there’s no claim — that’s the tradeoff for the lower upfront cost. Most of our clients pick hybrid for exactly this reason: the money doesn’t disappear if they stay healthy.
Can I really choose my own caregiver?
Yes. Many hybrid policies pay indemnity benefits, meaning you get cash directly instead of the carrier reimbursing a facility. You decide how to spend it — a home health aide, a family member, a friend from church, or a licensed facility. As long as you meet the policy’s care triggers, the carrier doesn’t tell you who provides the care.
I'm healthy now but I'm on a statin. Does that disqualify me?
Not at all. A statin alone is one of the most common medications we see, and most carriers don’t penalize for it. Underwriting gets tighter when multiple conditions stack — a statin plus an elevated A1C plus a recent procedure, for example. The only way to know your real numbers is to pull tentative quotes from a few carriers, which we do before any formal application.
How is this different from Medicare or Medicaid?
Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care. It pays for short rehab stays after a hospital visit, but not ongoing help with bathing, dressing, or eating. Medicaid does cover long-term care, but only after you’ve spent down most of your assets (typically below ~$3,000 for a single person in Minnesota). LTC insurance covers the gap — the years of care Medicare won’t pay for, before you drain your savings to qualify for Medicaid.
My spouse and I want coverage. Is it cheaper to plan together?
Often, yes. Many carriers offer joint or shared-benefit plans that price two people lower than two separate policies. Some hybrid plans even let one spouse draw on the other’s unused benefits — effectively a shared pool of care. We always quote both ways, joint and individual, so you can see the difference side by side.
I have an old LTC policy from the 2000s. Should I keep it or switch?
Usually keep it. Older traditional policies were priced before carriers understood how often claims would actually be filed, so the benefits-to-premium math is often better than anything sold today. The exception is when rate increases have pushed your premium up while the daily benefit hasn’t kept pace with care costs — then it’s worth running the numbers on a hybrid replacement. We’ll do that comparison for free, no pressure to switch.
A 30-minute Zoom Call
Won't cost you anything. Waiting might.
