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How Much Does Long-Term Care Insurance Cost? 2026 Premiums by Age

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What this guide covers

A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.

2026 premiums by age ($165,000 initial benefit)
The ages the index does not price, and why we left them blank
The carrier you pick moves the price more than five years of age does
What the premium buys against
What care actually costs (2025 survey medians)

Guides › Long-Term Care Planning

Updated August 12, 2026. Quick answer: per the industry association’s 2026 price index, a 55-year-old couple pays about $2,080/year combined for $165,000 of initial benefits each with level coverage, and about $5,050/year combined with 3% annual benefit growth. The same couple buying at 65 pays about $7,030/year for the growing design. Identical coverage varies up to 80% between carriers, which makes shopping multiple quotes the single highest-return hour in this market.

2026 premiums by age ($165,000 initial benefit)

  • Single man, 55: $950/year level · $2,200/year with 3% benefit growth · $3,710/year with 5% growth
  • Single woman, 55: $1,500/year level · $3,750/year with 3% growth · $6,400/year with 5% growth (women pay more because they claim more, longer)
  • Couple, both 55: $2,080/year combined level · $5,050/year with 3% growth · $8,575/year with 5% growth
  • Single woman, 60: about $4,450/year on the association’s “comparable coverage” basis
  • Couple, both 65: about $7,030/year combined with 3% compound growth

Source: American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance 2026 Price Index. Two structural facts matter more than any single number. Your price is set by your age and health on the day you apply, permanently — there is no re-rating for getting older, only for the whole class. And the association’s own carrier comparison found rate spreads of 56–80% for identical applicants, so a single quote is not a price — it is one point in a wide distribution.

Age 55 is the only age the 2026 index prices in fullAnnual premium, $165,000 initial benefit each, select health Nine published cells · three buyers · three benefit-growth designsAge 55 is the only age the 2026 indexprices in fullAnnual premium, $165,000 initial benefit each,select healthNine published cells · three buyers · threebenefit-growth designsSingle man, 55 · level benefitsSingle man, 55 · 3% yearly growthSingle man, 55 · 5% yearly growthSingle woman, 55 · level benefitsSingle woman, 55 · 3% yearly growthSingle woman, 55 · 5% yearly growthCouple both 55 · level, combinedCouple both 55 · 3% growth, combinedCouple both 55 · 5% growth, combinedAge 50Age 70Age 75$950$2,200$3,710$1,500$3,750$6,400$2,080$5,050$8,575no premium published at this ageno premium published at this ageno premium published at this age$0$2k$4k$6k$8k$10kAt 60 and 65 the index publishes one benchmarkpremium each and no grid: $4,450 for a singlewoman at 60, $7,030 for a couple at 65. At 50,70 and 75 it publishes nothing, and the emptylanes above are left empty rather thaninterpolated.For every buyer the index prices, the 5%growth design costs more than three times thelevel design.The 60 and 65 figures are the association’scomparable-coverage benchmarks, not cells ofthe age-55 grid, so they are the right orderof magnitude rather than exact like-for-like.Source: American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance,2026 Long-Term Care Insurance Price Index, calculated July2026 and read at aaltci.org on August 17, 2026. Prices arefor an initial benefit pool of $165,000 each, select health,quoted in Illinois; they vary by state, by health atapplication and by insurer.
The 2026 AALTCI Price Index publishes a full man / woman / couple grid across three benefit-growth designs at age 55 only. The three dashed lanes are ages the index does not price at all; they are drawn empty because an interpolated premium would be an invented quote on the exact number a reader came to plan around. The 60 and 65 figures are the association’s comparable-coverage benchmarks, not cells of the age-55 grid, so they are the right order of magnitude rather than exact like-for-like.

The ages the index does not price, and why we left them blank

The list above is the whole of it. The association prices the full grid — man, woman, couple, three growth designs — only at 55. At 60 and 65 it publishes one benchmark figure each, and at 50, 70 and 75 it publishes nothing at all. We have not interpolated the empty cells. Premiums do not rise in a straight line with age, and an invented row here would be an invented quote on the exact number you came to plan around.

The slope is still readable from what is there, with one caveat worth stating plainly: the 60 and 65 figures are the association’s “comparable coverage” benchmarks rather than cells of the same published grid, so treat them as the right order of magnitude and not as exact like-for-like. On that basis a single woman goes from $3,750 at 55 to about $4,450 at 60 — roughly 19% more for waiting five years, before health enters the picture at all. A couple goes from $5,050 at 55 to about $7,030 at 65, about 39% more, and the ten years of premiums they did not pay do not make that difference back.

A quote is one number. An adviser gets you the distribution.

Fee-only advisers see LTC quotes across carriers every week and know which underwriters are lenient on which conditions. The matching service below introduces you to advisers who pay to meet you.

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What happens when you press the button

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The carrier you pick moves the price more than five years of age does

The association’s 2026 comparison priced a single profile — an Illinois couple, both 60 — across leading carriers and came back with annual quotes running from $4,591 to $7,173 for virtually identical coverage. The most expensive is more than 56% above the cheapest, and at 65 the same exercise finds the spread reaching 80%.

Set that beside the age numbers. Waiting five years costs a 55-year-old woman roughly 19%. Taking the first quote instead of the best one can cost 56% on the same day, at the same age, in the same health. The age decision gets all the attention; the carrier decision is the larger of the two, and it is the one still entirely inside your control on the day you buy.

The insurer you pick moves the price further than five years of ageAnnual premium, $165,000 initial benefit, 3% yearly growth Both spans are the association’s own 2026 comparisonsThe insurer you pick moves the pricefurther than five years of ageAnnual premium, $165,000 initial benefit, 3%yearly growthBoth spans are the association’s own 2026comparisonsFive insurers, one Illinois couple both 60,identical coverOne buyer, five more years · single woman, 55then 60$4,591–$7,173$3,750–$4,450$0$2k$4k$6k$8k$10kSame age, same coverage, different insurer:56.2% from cheapest to dearest, a spread of$2,582 a year.Same buyer, same design, five years later:18.7% more, a step of $700 a year.The 60 and 65 figures are the association’scomparable-coverage benchmarks, not cells ofthe age-55 grid, so they are the right orderof magnitude rather than exact like-for-like.Source: American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance,2026 Long-Term Care Insurance Price Index, calculated July2026 and read at aaltci.org on August 17, 2026. Prices arefor an initial benefit pool of $165,000 each, select health,quoted in Illinois; they vary by state, by health atapplication and by insurer.
Two comparisons the 2026 AALTCI Price Index publishes, drawn on one axis. The spread between the cheapest and dearest of five insurers quoting the same Illinois couple is wider than the step from buying at 55 to buying at 60. The age decision is the one that gets the attention; on these figures the insurer decision is the larger of the two, and it is settled on the day of purchase. The 60 and 65 figures are the association’s comparable-coverage benchmarks, not cells of the age-55 grid, so they are the right order of magnitude rather than exact like-for-like.

The age-55 grid and the 80% figure are from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance 2026 Price Index (calculated July 2026); the age-60 and age-65 benchmarks and the $4,591–$7,173 Illinois quote range are from the same association’s 28 July 2026 study release. Both read 12 August 2026. That release states the 55-year-old couple figure as “approximately $5,010” against $5,050 in the index table for the same profile; we publish the index table’s number because it is the more specific source, and flag the variance rather than average it away.

What the premium buys against

⚠️ The premium you are quoted is not the premium you keep. Long-term-care policies are rate-adjustable, and a later increase arrives with a menu of ways to absorb it — the options, decoded, and when a large enough increase entitles you to a paid-up policy instead.

What care actually costs (2025 survey medians)

  • $129,575/year ($355/day) — nursing home, private room; semi-private $114,975.
  • $74,400/year ($6,200/month) — assisted living.
  • $80,080/year — in-home care at the $35/hour median, 44 hours/week.

Source: CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey (25,000+ provider rates collected July–November 2025, published by Genworth). These are national medians — metro areas run materially higher — and they are the defaults in the calculator below, editable to your area. How likely any of it is to happen at all is a separate published question, and the headline figure is routinely overread: the 70% figure and the four things it does not mean.

Run the two paths on your own numbers: the self-insure vs insurance breakeven calculator. Deciding when matters as much as whether: buying at 55 vs 65. And the path with no premium on it at all has arithmetic of its own worth seeing beside this one: paying for care without insurance.

A premium is one route to paying for care at home, and for the most common home modification the programs answer differently: how to pay for a stairlift quotes Medicare’s own reference list denying stairway elevators and the VA exclusion that stairlift marketing does not mention.

See whether an adviser match is worth comparing