If it's at all possible financially (in terms of the premiums) and in terms of your eligibility at the time of policy application, you want to have the following benefits and features in your long-term care insurance policy.

Your policy should spell out very specifically when you will receive payouts, how much the payouts will be, and for how long they will last.

Keep your elimination period as short as you can afford. Also, don't take a policy that stipulates you need to first stay in a hospital and be covered by your health insurance before you become eligible to receive the LTC payouts; likewise, don't take a policy that would re-impose a new elimination period on you if you came out of the nursing home but then had to go back in later.

Pay for a Non-Forfeiture Benefit if you can at all afford it.

Some LTC policies will cover pre-existing conditions if they are not at the time of application causing an inability to perform more than one ADL (activity of daily living), as long as you disclose them to the provider at that time. Take one of these policies if you can afford it.

By all means buy an LTC insurance policy that includes some form of inflation protection. Sometimes this means an automatic maximum daily or monthly coverage limit raise on an annual basis, or it could mean you are guaranteed the right at any time to raise your coverage limits (which option you choose will affect your premiums).

There are long term care insurance policies that will permit you the option of downgrading your total protection benefits if the premiums become too steep for you to pay for them. Take a policy that allows you this option. If you don't and you run into premium paying trouble down the line, you'll lose all of your coverage.

Dementia and Alzheimer's disease should be covered by your LTC policy. If you ever need prescription drugs to treat these cognitive disorders your health insurance will pay for them, but these two diseases are leading causes of needing to enter a nursing home on a long-term basis and you'll need the long-term care insurance for that.

Don't get a long term care policy that covers less than at least one year's stay in a nursing home or one year's worth of custodial home-based nursing care.

Don't consider any policy that won't allow you the guaranteed, no-questions-asked right to cancel the policy for a 100% refund within 30 days after purchase.

Of course, you'll want to talk to several different providers and get different premium prices on similar policies. Also check a provider's track record of paying out. If a provider is slow to pay out or squabbles over long-term care payout eligibility on a constant basis, don't do business with them.

Andrew Long writes for a series of websites about Care insurance and health related issues. A main area of expertise and content covers long-term care insurance and disability insurance plans