Taxes & Insurance

When you enroll, the premiums are affordable for the younger employees and the premiums are more expensive for the older employees. Image: Panchenko Vladimir/Shutterstock.com

The life expectancy of a federal employee is uncertain.  It can be in their 70s, 80s, and 90s.  Technology, medicine and preventive care can provide a long and productive life into retirement.  We buy health insurance with the hope of never having to utilize it.  We buy auto and homeowners insurance with the hope that we never have to file a claim.  It provides us with another layer of safety.

The Federal Long Term Care Insurance Plan (FLTCIP) is available to all federal and U.S. Postal Service employees, retired annuitants, active and retired uniformed service members, and certain qualified relatives. Qualified relatives include spouses, domestic partners, adult children, parents, parents-in-law, and stepparents.

The FLTCIP insurance is a long-term care policy that will most likely be needed by many federal employees and retirees as they age.  Long term care provides assistance to employees who are incapacitated from an injury or surgery during their employment or assistance with nursing home care when you reach old age in retirement.   It can pay for 24-hour care in a nursing home. It can also pay for care in your personal residence.  You may need a health care professional to check on your daily progress or to change your wound dressings.  You may need assistance with bathing or doing simple household chores.  The policy pays for these types of services.  You can hire a professional to do these tasks or hire a relative or a friend to assist you.

Other benefits offered by the FLTCIP are as follows.
• international coverage up to 100% of the maximum lifetime benefit
• choice of a 3% automatic compound inflation option or future purchase option
• choice of a two-year, three-year, or five-year benefit period

I know the cost associated with long-term care in a nursing home. It can be exorbitant.  Depending on which part of the country you live in, a nursing home facility can cost 253 to 400 dollars per day.  My mother does not have a long-term care policy and she is living in a nursing home.  Her cost is 400 per day or 150,000 per year. Regardless of the setting, personal residence, assisted living facility, or nursing home, long-term care can be expensive.  And the need for long term care can happen at any time, not just in your later years, so making decisions about this type of care can be difficult.

When you enroll, the premiums are affordable for the younger employees and the premiums are more expensive for the older employees.  My wife and I signed up for FLTCIP through John Hancock Insurance approximately, 22 years ago, when we were in our early 40s. Years later, expanded benefits led to FLTCIP 2.0 and 3.0.  During my 22 years of coverage, my premiums have only increased twice.  Instead of an increased premium, I chose to have my benefits reduced to control my cost.  You can explore, the FLTCIP 3.0 website (https://www.ltcfeds.com/) See which type of coverage and benefits would best fit your needs and your budget. I have addressed the importance of this benefit to all my clients. I believe that a basic policy is better than no policy at all.


I am a retired federal employee with 36 years of federal service. And I opened my own business called AG Financial Services (https://grungold.com/) which I help federal employees with their TSP and federal retirement planning and decisions.   I have written over 40 articles regarding the TSP and FERS retirement.  As well as been a guest on several podcast with the Federal News Radio and Government Executive Magazine.

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