(Radio Iowa) – A free webinar will be held next week to help Iowans navigate the complicated topic of long-term care insurance. Rayna Stoycheva, director for retirement security policy at the Harkin Institute, says they’ll have a panel of experts, including the director of the Washington Cares Fund, the nation’s first state-level, universal long-term care insurance program. “He is both an expert as the person who is managing this program, but he has also done a lot of research, especially in Europe, in other countries,” Stoycheva says,”so he brings two types of expertise to the panel.” Many people think long-term care insurance is only for the very old, but it could be of crucial importance to someone much younger if there’s an accident or a crisis with physical or mental health. The webinar will include a question-and-answer session, though the questions often boil down to just a few key points.

“The Center for Retirement Research has done a lot of research on long term care. Who will need it? How much does it cost?” Stoycheva says. “How short projections, these are not easy — but still, how short potentially people are in terms of their savings towards that.” The Harkin Institute, based at Drake University in Des Moines, says the cost of long-term care has nearly doubled since the early 2000s, both for at-home care and nursing home care, pushing costs out of reach for everyone except the very wealthy. Stoycheva says it’s important that Iowans become educated about the options for this type of insurance, especially, how soon you should buy.

“Part of the reason why we are having these conversations, it is not universally available through employers, but to the extent that you do have access, it is cheaper to buy it earlier in your life,” Stoycheva says, “so if that’s an option, the answer would be, you should buy it as early as possible.”

The free webinar over Zoom is scheduled for next Thursday (May 22nd) at 2 p-m. Learn more HERE: https://harkininstitute.drake.edu/2025/04/29/12170/