Yes, but the coverage you need depends a lot on whether you’re after a traditional insurance policy or an integrated employer benefit. Most standard employer-sponsored health plans, including those on the ACA marketplace, don’t cover long-term care services like nursing homes, assisted living, or in-home personal care. But several pathways exist. And a new class of benefits ties long-term wellness directly to financial security. WellthCare™, the first Health-to-Wealth™ Benefit System, is leading this class by rewarding every verified preventive action with Store dollars and automatic retirement contributions at no new cost to employers.
Long-term care (LTC) helps people with chronic illnesses, disabilities, or cognitive impairments perform daily activities like bathing, dressing, and eating. Traditional medical insurance, including Medicare, standard employer plans, and most disability insurance, typically won’t pay for this. Medicare has one narrow exception: Part A covers skilled nursing facility care for up to 100 days per benefit period after a qualifying hospital stay, but it does not cover custodial care when that is the only care a person needs. However, multiple options are available:
Traditional Long-Term Care Insurance
Private LTC policies are designed specifically for these services. Mutual of Omaha still sells them, and Genworth re-entered the market in October 2025 through its CareScout subsidiary. John Hancock, once a major seller, no longer writes new standalone policies and now offers only hybrid life and long-term care products. These policies reimburse a daily or monthly amount for care in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or at home. Premiums depend on age and health at application, so buying early matters. These are not employer-sponsored benefits in the traditional sense, though some employers offer group LTC insurance as a voluntary benefit.
Hybrid Life Insurance & Long-Term Care Policies
Many carriers now sell life insurance with a long-term care rider. You can access part of the death benefit to pay for LTC if needed. This is the fastest-growing part of the long-term care market because it solves the “use it or lose it” problem. If you never need LTC, your beneficiaries get the full death benefit. Some employers now include these in their benefits packages.
Medicaid (for Those with Limited Assets)
For people with very low income and assets, Medicaid covers long-term care broadly, including nursing home and home- and community-based services. Medicaid is the nation’s primary payer for long-term care services. It’s a joint federal-state program, not an employer benefit. Eligibility rules vary by state, and asset transfer rules are strict. It’s often a last resort, not a proactive planning tool.
What Long-Term Care Costs
Long-term care is expensive enough to consume most retirements. The 2025 CareScout/Genworth Cost of Care Survey put the national median at $129,575 a year for a private nursing home room, $114,975 for a semi-private room, and $74,400 for an assisted living community. Non-medical home care runs a median of $35 an hour, roughly $80,000 a year at 44 hours of weekly care. Against those figures, only about 3% of adults 50 and older hold long-term care insurance of any kind, according to LIMRA, an insurance industry trade group. The gap between six-figure care costs and near-zero private coverage pushes families toward Medicaid spend-down or unpaid family caregiving. Building retirement savings while employees are still working is one way to close it.
New Employer-Based Health-to-Wealth Benefits
A different approach comes from companies like WellthCare, which changes the relationship between health coverage and long-term financial security. WellthCare does not operate like a traditional LTC policy. It builds wealth that can fund future care. Here’s how it fits into an employer’s existing health plan:
- $0 co-pay preventive care used first, before expensive claims hit. This reduces the risk of chronic conditions that lead to long-term care needs.
- Automatic retirement contributions funded by savings the employer commits. These grow over time and can help pay for future long-term care services.
- Reward dollars at the WellthCare Store™, earned for verified preventive actions and spendable on health-supporting products today, reducing future institutional care.
- The WellthCare Readiness Index™ turns real usage into proof, showing employers with their own data when and how much they’d save by expanding.
This system targets the financial and health behaviors that drive long-term care costs, though it does not replace traditional LTC insurance. By reducing the risk of chronic disease and building retirement wealth at the same time, WellthCare creates a safety net traditional plans can’t match.
Key Compliance Considerations for Employers
If you’re an employer evaluating any benefit touching long-term care or retirement health funding, make sure you’re compliant with ERISA, HIPAA, and ACA regulations. WellthCare’s patent-pending system maintains full compliance-grade records and aligns incentives so both sides win. A traditional LTC policy offered as a voluntary, employee-paid benefit generally falls outside ERISA when it meets the DOL’s voluntary plan safe harbor. Hybrid life and LTC policies, by contrast, usually remain ERISA plans.
This article is for general information only and is not legal, tax, or medical advice. Employers should consult their own advisors.
Simplicity drives adoption. Employees won’t engage with a complex tangle of riders and paperwork. The best approach automates savings, rewards prevention, and builds wealth, just as WellthCare does. It adds alongside the existing plan, proves value with real behavior, and employers expand when their own data shows the savings.
Recommendations for Employers
- Assess your workforce demographics. If you have many aging employees, consider offering a voluntary group long-term care insurance plan.
- Integrate a Health-to-Wealth system like WellthCare that automatically funds retirement accounts tied to healthy behaviors. This benefit builds a pool for future care without new employer out-of-pocket cost.
- Educate employees on the difference between medical coverage and long-term care. Most don’t realize Medicare doesn’t cover custodial care.
- Monitor the WellthCare Readiness Index™. After 6 to 12 months of real usage, it shows employers with their own data when and how much they’d save by expanding.
No system today completely replaces traditional long-term care insurance, but the emerging Health-to-Wealth category changes the math. By turning preventive healthcare into automatic wealth, employees build the financial resources they need for dignified aging, and employers slash waste. That’s the future of benefits: Healthcare that pays you back.