for care before your benefits are paid. Elimination days may be from 30 to 120 days after a long-term care incident, such as a fall or illness. Some policies require intended claimants to provide proof of 30 to 120 service days of paid care before any benefits will be paid. In some cases, the option may be available to select zero elimination days when covered services are provided in the home in accordance with a Plan of Care. A policyholder can select a maximum daily or monthly benefit. This is the maximum the insurance company will pay toward care on either a daily or monthly basis LTC riders in Canada LTC Insurance riders generally available in Canadian policies include: ROPD – Return of premium on death. Your premiums are returned to your estate. Protection from inflation – Policy benefit grows at a set rate of return. LTCi in Germany In Germany there are two different kinds of care insurance: mandatory care insurance and voluntary, private care insurance. The German laws oblige the people to have a basic care insurance. It is one of five mandatory insurances, the others are health, accident, unemployment and pension insurance. As usual in the German public insurance system costs are evenly split between employers and employees. There are three types of private care insurance: 1. The most expensive form of private care insurance is like a life insurance. It pays you a monthly pension when the insured needs to be taken care of, no matter what the care actually costs. When making the contract you can choose how much the insurance pays each month, depending on the care level. 2. Another form of private care insurance pays a certain percentage of the actual cost after the mandatory care insurance has paid. Here you can decide on the percentage that is being paid, depending on the care level. The advantage of this type of insurance is that it pays more money when the care costs more, so the risk of raised prices is lower for the insured. 3. The most common type of private care insurance pays a certain amount of money for each day where the insured is being taken care of. LTCi in the United States Some 7 million individuals have some form of long-term care insurance. The vast majority have what is referred to as traditional, or health-based, LTC insurance. The opposite is