Retirement plans usually cover the income part, the investment part, and sometimes the estate part. The part that gets skipped is what happens if you need help with daily living for a few years. Bathing, dressing, memory care. Nobody enjoys thinking about it, so most plans just don't.
Here's the problem with skipping it: the costs don't go away, they land on someone. Sometimes that's your savings, drained faster than any market crash could manage. Often it's a daughter or son who becomes an unpaid caregiver while their own career and health absorb the hit. When I meet families in the middle of a care event, the decisions get made in a hospital hallway under pressure. The families who planned ten years earlier make the same decisions calmly, with better options on the table.
Watch for this: people assume Medicare covers long-term care. It mostly doesn't. Medicare covers short rehab stays after a hospitalization, and it stops well short of years of custodial care. Medicaid does cover custodial care, but only after you've spent down most of what you own, and it limits where and how that care happens.
The insurance answers come in a few shapes. Traditional long-term care policies. Hybrid life policies with care riders, which pay for care if you need it and pay your family if you don't. Some annuities carry care benefits now too. Each shape trades price against flexibility, and the right one depends on your health, your family situation, and your budget.
The common thread is timing. Every one of these options is cheaper and easier to qualify for in your fifties than in your late sixties, because you're buying with your health as much as your money. If this is the piece your plan is missing, the long-term care overview is a good start, and our quote page can put real numbers on it while the numbers are still friendly.