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Long-term Care Insurance, Life Insurance & Annuities

Will you have the money to ensure that you and your family will be able to make the choices that are best for you, choices that will allow you to experience the best quality of life and that will keep you in your home as long as possible when you need it?

Recently we were contacted to assist a family with triggering their long-term care insurance policy benefits, including billing the insurance company for services, and helping them to find caregivers to assist with their father’s needs. Families always experience stress when a parent is found to have needs beyond the families capacities and when they finally know that they are needing some help, but there is a world of difference when some planning has been done and the parent has long-term care insurance, an annuity or life insurance designed for long-term care to help with expenses.

With these products in place, the parent and family truly do have choices. Long-term Care Insurance is by far one of the best options because it can be custom tailored to meet your needs, it has more features and is more flexible than some of the other products. The earlier you purchase it the better in terms of the cost, and in your 40s is a great time to buy. When an older adult has to pay for all expenses “out of pocket”, things are generally so stressful that there are no words to describe what a family goes through trying to help their loved one, and a lot of important decisions have to be made in crisis mode. This you do not want.

We have to sadly say that in all of the years we have been working with older adults, receiving a call like this where there is insurance is rare. How can we live the quality of life that we desire when we can’t make choices for ourselves, and why do we risk putting this kind of burden on our families just because we don’t want to deal with it?

We are saying this to ourselves, our family and friends and to all of you who visit this site, the day will come for a very large percentage of us where we will need help with performing daily activities. So, why not deal with this today so that we will be ready and we will be able to get what we need when we need it.

The family that we worked with had the long-term care benefits (money) to pay caregivers and take some of the load off of family members, and it paid for equipment and a wheelchair ramp as well. The father was able to live out his life in his home with his family there, and they had the money to pay for what he needed. This kind of peace of mind for older adults and their families is priceless.

What does this product do for me? SNAPSHOT:

Purchasing Long-term Care insurance or an annuity with a Long-term Care Rider will pay for the services of a caregiver in your home up to a certain amount and it can pay for equipment and minor home renovations to keep you in your home. Think about how you make choices and decisions today when you have an income. Owning a Long-term Care policy will allow you to continue making decisions and choices for yourself because you will have an allotted amount of money to spend on your care that is not tied to someone working and making an income or the use of retirement savings. This will give your children and loved ones the help they need to make sure you live the best quality of life possible. If you need to move into alternative living accommodations (Assisted Living or Skilled Nursing), your policy benefits will automatically follow you there and they will increase to cover a great deal of your costs so that your assets will be protected. Where else can you get this kind of peace of mind for a reasonable monthly payment?

The odds that you’ll need long-term care are likely greater than you imagine.

Seventy percent of all Americans age 65 and older will likely need some form of long-term care (LTC). This includes nursing home care as well as assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs): toileting, bathing, dressing, eating, transferring out of bed and incontinence care.
On average, people need care for three years, but 20 percent of today’s older adults will need care for five years or more, according to the HHS’ National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information.
More than 40 percent will need care in a nursing home. And considering the average annual cost of nursing home care is $75,000 a year , this level of care can quickly eat through your savings.

To give you a brief overview, here are the options you have when it comes to paying for long-term care:

Pay for Expenses Yourself – cash out of pocket
Long-Term Care Insurance
Annuities
Life Insurance
Medicare – only pays for short-term expenses
Medicaid With No Assets – after you have spent all of your money on long-term care
Asset Protection – Medicaid Planning

If you have questions and would like to gather more information on your options when it comes to covering long-term care expenses, one of our preferred providers would be glad to consult with you. Contact us to schedule an appointment.