RICHMOND, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 2003-- Average Costs Rise 7% in Two Years;
Range from $35,900 to $166,700 Annually
A survey of nursing home costs commissioned by GE Financial's Long Term Care Insurance division shows that a year in a nursing home costs approximately $85,000 or more in the nation's five most expensive areas. The cost of a year of nursing home care in Alaska, the most expensive area in the country to obtain such care, is $166,700. Louisiana is the least expensive, with an average annual cost of $35,900.
The national annual average cost of a year in a nursing home is $57,700, which represents a seven-percent increase from GE Financial's initial survey, conducted in December 2001. The survey evaluated the cost of assistance in a nursing home with the activities of daily living for a person suffering from a debilitation such as Parkinson's disease. It did not include costs for therapy, rehabilitation, or medications.
These results show how quickly the cost of nursing home care could exhaust even a substantial nest egg, and how valuable long term care insurance can be in helping protect the assets accumulated over a lifetime, said Buck Stinson, President of GE Financial's Long Term
Care Insurance division. More importantly, it underscores how critical it is for baby boomers to look into this vital form of protection while they're still healthy enough to qualify.
Evans Research of San Francisco surveyed 2,218 skilled and intermediate care nursing homes in all 50 states during May 2003, including 10 to twenty-five percent of the licensed nursing homes in each of the 74 individual areas surveyed. The survey has an error rate of plus or minus 1.9 percent.
The ten most expensive areas of the country in which to receive nursing home care are: Average Annual Cost
Rank Area (rounded up to the nearest 00)
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1 Alaska $166,700
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2 New York City $105,500
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3 Connecticut $97,400
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4 Boston $89,800
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5 Hawaii $84,700
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6 District of Columbia $82,800
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7 Massachusetts (other than Boston) $80,200
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8 New Jersey $80,100
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9 New York (other than NYC) $78,700
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10 Maine $72,800
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The survey also revealed that costs varied widely, from a low of $69 per day at one nursing home in Oklahoma to a high of $720 per day at a facility in Alaska. The survey did not evaluate the cost of assistance with activities of daily living provided either in the home or other types of facilities, including adult day care centers or assisted care facilities.
GE Financial is part of GE Insurance, a global family of insurance and reinsurance businesses with $13.6 billion in premiums and assets of $188 billion. GE Insurance provides life insurance, retirement income products, property and casualty insurance, risk prevention services, mortgage insurance, and selective financial guarantee insurance.
GE Insurance is part of General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), a diversified services, technology and manufacturing company with operations worldwide.
GE Long Term Care Insurance products are underwritten by General Electric Capital Assurance Company and, in New York, by GE Capital Life Assurance Company of New York. GE's Long Term Care division is headquartered in Richmond, Va.
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CONTACT: GE Financial
Carl Dombek, 804-484-3973
[email protected]
Jeff Wilson
GE Capital Corporate Finance
[email protected]
1-203-749-6340