When considering buying a Long Term Care Insurance policy a general rule of thumb is to look for the basic coverage and then add a few additional riders to make the policy best fit your needs. Almost all Long Term Care Insurance Companies offer polices which provide some kind of combined nursing home care, home health care, assisted living and adult day care services. But by offering policies with special features, riders, discounts and expanded benefits, insurance companies differentiate themselves and their products.

Riders are special provisions of the insurance policy which provide additional benefits which make adjustments to the basic contract or policy. A rider can be defined as something added to the basic policy to provide additional benefits at an extra cost. Though riders add valuable benefits to your policy choose the optional riders which are worth the extra cost.

Following are few of the important optional riders to consider:

Inflation Protection Rider
This is the most important rider to keep in mind while buying a LTCI policy. Most plans offer a 5% compound inflation protection or 5% simple or equal inflation protection to ensure that your LTCI benefits are on par with the rising cost of health care services. You do not want to lose purchasing power due to inflation at a time when you need it the most.

Spousal Benefit Rider
With this rider you and your spouse/partner can use each others LTCI benefits. For example if you are married and buy a three year shared benefit policy and you use only two years of benefits, your spouse can use the remaining 4 years.

Home Health Care Elimination Rider
This rider eliminates the deductible or elimination period for coverage for Home Health Care. This rider makes you eligible to receive your home health care benefits on day one of your claim without having to wait out the elimination period.

Non Forfeiture Benefit Rider
This rider guarantees you that you will not lose all your benefits if you stop paying premiums. It allows you to use benefits sum total of the value of premiums paid in the past.

Return of Premium Benefit Rider
If in your life time you do not use any of your long term care insurance policy benefits then your beneficiary will be entitled to receive some or all of the premiums you had paid.

Restoration of Benefits Rider
If you come off claim for 90 days and make a full recovery no longer needing long term care, this rider restores your policy benefits to its original maximum value. For example if your policy has a three year maximum period and you used one year of benefits, this rider will add back the money you used for a year. This makes you have a brand new policy.