What Long-Term Care Really Costs in 2026 (And What Falls Outside Insurance)

Care costs are rising, and coverage has limits. More families are discovering the gap between the two—usually at the worst possible time to be discovering anything.

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According to CareScout’s 2025 Cost of Care Survey, the national median cost of non-medical in-home care has reached $35 per hour. For a family relying on consistent weekly care, that adds up fast.

These aren’t worst-case projections—they’re current national medians. Families in higher-cost states typically see figures well above these numbers.

What Long-Term Care Insurance Covers—and What It Doesn’t

Long-term care insurance remains one of the most important tools for managing these costs, but coverage isn’t unconditional. According to materials from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), elimination periods, benefit triggers, covered service categories, and provider qualifications all determine when—and whether—a policy actually pays. The American Academy of Actuaries has also noted ongoing premium pressures and increasing complexity around pre-claim planning in the LTC insurance space.

Most policies are structured to respond to a qualifying medical event. That’s necessary and appropriate for an insurance product—but it also means a lot of real-life situations fall outside what the policy was designed to address.

The Gap Families Discover Too Late

Care-related costs often show up long before a qualifying claim event. A parent stops driving. Household responsibilities become harder to manage. None of these moments trigger an insurance benefit—but they’re frequently where families feel the financial and logistical pressure most.

Where a Membership Plan Fits Into the Cost Picture

This is the gap a nationwide, non-medical home care membership like True Freedom Home Care is built to address—a bank of pre-arranged home care hours, secured while someone is still independent, for the non-medical support that often precedes a formal care event by months or years. It isn’t insurance and doesn’t replace an LTC policy, but for the stretch before a claim would ever pay out, it can meaningfully change what a family is paying out of pocket.

What to Do With These Numbers

If you’re weighing long-term care insurance, reviewing an existing policy, or just trying to get a realistic sense of what care might cost your own family, these medians are a reasonable starting point—not a ceiling. It’s worth running your own numbers against your state’s typical rates and worth asking directly what your current coverage would and wouldn’t pay for in the years before a formal claim.

Are these home care and facility cost figures current?

They reflect CareScout’s 2025 Cost of Care Survey, the most recent published national benchmark at the time of writing. Actual costs vary significantly by state and region.

Does long-term care insurance cover non-medical, in-home help?

It depends on the policy. Many LTC policies do cover some in-home care, but only after benefit triggers and elimination periods are met—they generally don’t cover everyday, non-medical support before that point.

How does a home care membership compare in cost to paying an agency directly?

A membership plan involves an upfront monthly or annual fee in exchange for a pre-purchased bank of hours at a locked-in value, versus paying an agency’s current hourly rate out of pocket as needs arise. A plan advisor can walk through current plan pricing for your household.

Sources: CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey · National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) · American Academy of Actuaries · Medicare.gov