Limited and Extended Care Planning Collective

The Certification for Long-Term Care has produced a fact sheet, "A Teachable Moment: The Power of Starting a Conversation," to help advisors start conversations with clients about the importance of extended care planning. It offers facts and statistics that emphasize the importance of planning.

Recently I received an email from a Insurance Carrier who sells Linked Life/LTC plans with the headline "What happened to traditional LTC?".  The email started by saying "It wasn't so long age that traditional long-term care (LTC) insurance dominated the market, but now they are barely holding on while linked-benefit products are taking over."  Harsh!

For Financial Professionals that are savvy enough to have a discussion about the impact of a long-term care event one of the most important topics is whether a client should consider long-term care insurance or should instead "self-insure".

Luckily, you aren't going to need years and years of high cost long-term care. But what if you did?

NAIFA-WA is urging changes to a long-term services bill, HB 1323, to protect employees who have purchased long-term care coverage.

Most states require financial professionals to provide consumers with a copy of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners publication “A Shopper’s Guide to Long-Term Care Insurance” before completing an LTC insurance sale.

NAIFA is encouraging the efforts of Indiana state Sen. Greg Walker and Rep. Martin Carbaugh to replace the Indiana Long Term Care Insurance Program, also known as the RWJ Partnership, with legislation (HB 1405 and SB 261) to create a Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) Partnership.

NAIFA supports Maryland state legislation that would provide consumers in the state with easier access to resources and educational materials on long-term care (LTC) planning. A NAIFA-Maryland member served on the Task Force on LTC Education and Planning that made recommendations that helped shape the bill, HB 599, Public Health – Long Term Care Planning.

If you have a client who can’t afford their policy – especially if it’s due to health problems – you may want to help them look into a life settlement. Of course, this leaves them without any death benefit protection, which isn’t ideal. But if they either don’t need the coverage or have no financial option but to let it lapse, a settlement may be the ideal solution.