When my old man passed about 14 years ago, my mom of her own volition decided to purchase long term care insurance. Her insurer was Mutual of Omaha, and they were a bitch to deal with when it was time to start collecting(Alzheimers/memory care). There is no way my mom would be able to navigate the hurdles thrown up by her insurer to resist the start of payments, as her mental faculties were too diminished by the time she qualified. Luckily my sister stayed on their ass like a rabid banshee so they did begin payout. We exhausted the entirety of her lifetime maximum benefit ($350K) in a little over 2 years, but she was in a nice place on the east coast. She had some savings which we were just starting to tap into when she passed. Realizing exactly how much it costs to receive the standard of care that she did (and it was top notch) was horrifying.
As an aside, the long term care insurance market must be a horrible business. I forget the exact details, but I know she paid in much less than she received (maybe 30%). Which probably explains the difficulty in getting the payments started. These companies are losing their ass with the spike in costs as evidenced by the number of insurers offering long term care insurance falling from 100+ to about a dozen. I'm not sure if its even worth looking into these days as premiums to enroll have skyrocketed, but it proved to a valuable financial tool in my mom's case. But she also had an advocate in my sister to manage the claims process which was not trivial.
And to clarify, I don't believe she qualified for benefits while she was merely in assisted living. So she paid for assisted living (around $60-$70K/yr) and only when she entered memory care did she get the benefits of her policy. But fuck those were exhausted quickly.