Lifetime HealthCare
Planning Center

NAIFA’s Lifetime Healthcare Center is presenting “The Peak 65 Series: Impact Day for Lifetime Healthcare,” a one-day virtual event, November 19, beginning at 11 am eastern. It features a dozen 20-minute TED Talk-like presentations covering timely topics on the financial implications of longevity and aging. Presenters include recognized thought leaders offering insights on long-term care, disability income, hybrid insurance products, Medicare, federal and state legislative and regulatory considerations, and more.

November is National Long-Term Care Awareness Month and it is a great time to bring potential limited and extended care planning needs top-of-mind with your clients. It is important for every comprehensive financial plan to include LTC considerations. So even if LTC insurance is not your primary line of business, Long-Term Care Awareness Month gives you a good opportunity to get clients up to speed.

A study conducted by OneAmerica found that 46% of financial professionals do not recommend long-term care (LTC) protection to their clients.

The study highlights a potential gap in helping clients prepare financially for potential LTC expenses. It is estimated that almost 70% of individuals over the age of 65 will require LTC services at some point in their lives, making LTC protection an important aspect of retirement planning.

Let me ask you a question. How much will your long-term care cost?

The answer, of course, is you have no idea. You may be one of the lucky ones who are completely independent and dies of "natural" causes in their sleep. Or you may be diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's and need expensive care for a number of years. It's not unusual for people to spend up to $20,000 per month on long-term care (I've got family experience). 

It's often said that LTC Insurance is for the middle class - the poor can rely on Medicaid to pay for care and the wealthy can pay for care themselves. But is self-insuring, or to be more precise self-funding, always the best choice?

As you get older and develop medical conditions, you may need to consider getting assistance in the form of senior care. From in-home care to an assisted living or nursing facility, there are many options that can meet your needs. But the unfortunate reality is that senior care often comes with a high price tag, and you need to know what costs to anticipate—and how you’ll cover your care. In this post, we’re exploring how you can finance this important step in your journey—and live comfortably and affordably throughout your later years.

There’s a good chance that you will need long-term care as you age. After all, more than half of adults 65 and older need this sort of care when a medical issue leaves them unable to care for themselves, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s why it’s important to plan for this possibility, especially considering that professional long-term care at home or in a facility can be incredibly expensive. 

One way to plan financially for long-term care is to create a trust. And, no, a trust isn’t just something the wealthy use to pass on their money from generation to generation. It can be an incredibly useful tool to protect your assets if you become incapacitated and to shield your assets to qualify for certain long-term care benefits.

This article is a continuation of Jamie Sarno's series on Short-Term Care Insurance. You can read the first part of the series here and the second part of the series here.

After posting the last two articles and hosting the short-term care webinar here at NAIFA, I have been inundated with emails and phone calls — all asking for more information on short-term care.  

What I heard, from the majority of you, is that you need and want a solution when long-term care coverage is not possible for your clients — due to their age, health, or finances.

For many seniors, long-term care (LTC) insurance—an insurance policy that helps pay for chronic medical care—can be a worthwhile choice. After all, nearly 70% of seniors aged 65 or older will require some form of long-term care in their lifetime—a service that can be prohibitively expensive, setting families back thousands of dollars a month.

But is long-term care insurance worth it? This policy tends to come at a steep price: in the U.S., for example, the average 55-year-old man pays an annual premium of $2,220. And thanks to insurance marketing tactics, potential buyers often believe that they’ll spend years in a nursing facility—which isn’t always the case.

Caring for a parent can take a big toll on your finances. Nearly eight in 10 caregivers report having to cover expenses related to caregiving out of their own pockets and spend an average of $7,242 a year on those expenses, according to a study by AARP. 

Fortunately, there are tax breaks that might help offset the cost of elder care. Find out if you are eligible for any of these federal tax credits or deductions for taking care of elderly parents.