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You are here: Home / Archives for Long-term care

Long Term Care Planning: What Would You Do?

February 19, 2013 by Average Joe 38 Comments

Be the bigger adult and address the hard problems with people you love before you’re forced to make tough decisions down the road.

My father in law was a smart, active man. An engineer who built houses on the side for fun and profit, he ran nearly every day and lived on healthy foods. He was that guy who everyone knew when you went out to lunch. He had an easy smile and a nearly easier laugh.

I was lucky that a guy this smart would come to his daughter’s son for financial advice. In some ways (like most of my clients) he didn’t need it. He was at the top of his game in most aspects. He just had one big gaping hole in his plan: he didn’t want to talk about illness or mortality.

One problem I saw in most financial plans, including my father in law’s, was that although they did a fine job of picking investments that they knew, their plans generally had no escape valves. Some people only invested in stocks,. Others owned only real estate. Some had all their money in the 401k plan at work and wanted to retire at 50.

My father in law’s problem? He was so insurance-adverse that he’d decided to do nothing.

 

Disturbing Long Term Care Stats

 

The threat of a catastrophic illness is real. While the threat of a fire burning your home is 1 in 1,200 and the risk of an automobile accident is 1 in 240, the chance you’ll need some sort of long term care help is 1 in 5. Those ain’t good odds.

So, as I did with every client, my job was to talk about it. Did I like this talk? Absolutely not. It was my least favorite meeting. But I had a job to do. What action they took was up to them.

When you talk about long term care, talk about the three options available:

 

Long Term Care Strategy: Your Three Choices

 

Assume the risk. This option is best for people with nothing to lose or for people with enough money that they can “self insure.” Much like most life insurance uses, long term care protects assets you can’t afford to lose.

What’s interesting about long term care is the way many of my wealthiest clients saw the products. Based on past comments here on the blog, many of my readers are like me: they want as little insurance as possible. That’s smart for people who are struggling to reach the “finish line” on financial independence. But when financial independence is assured, I met many wealthy individuals who could afford to self insure who decided not to because the cost in assets was potentially so great. In short: the premium payments on an insurance policy is so small that they’d rather insure the risk.

 

Hand the risk to an insurance company. Regardless of what I said earlier about wealthy individuals, this is a tough pill to swallow. The reason my father in law didn’t want to talk about long term care? It’s uber-expensive. The funny thing is….the reason it’s expensive is why you need it: actuaries for the insurance companies price policies higher when they think the product will be used. LTC is expensive because they think you’re going to need it.

 

Here’s a creative strategy that worked for a few people: I had some clients that weren’t worried about outliving assets, but who did want to make sure they still had a legacy for their family. Instead of buying a long term care policy they purchased an immediate annuity. The money from the annuity purchased long term care and an insurance policy in the amount of the annuity. While the person lived the annuity paid the insurance cost and when they died the insurance policy replaced the money that was spent.

 

Take some of the risk and hand some of the risk to an insurance company. In this scenario, you play the statistics. The average person will need long term care for 2 and a half years, so buy a policy that covers just longer than that. Sure, it doesn’t cover the horror stories of long, long term care, but you’ll cover the likely amount of time. Raise the deductible so that you pay for anything short term out of pocket. Moves like these can decrease the cost of insurance so that you can still focus on your goals while not worrying about the “what if’s” associated with long term care.

 

How it turned out for us:

 

My mother in law was very worried about the threat of long term care, but my father in law decided to assume the risk, even though they weren’t wealthy. His family had a history of Parkinson’s disease. Sadly, it struck him, too. Because they didn’t have enough money to afford long term care, my mother in law ended up caring for him. He fell a lot. She couldn’t help him up so she’d have to call an ambulance. He became harder and harder to take care of. In some ways it was lucky that he fell and hit his head while insisting that he walk the dog. He passed away before the big bills would have happened. However, the toll on my mother in law, seven months after his death, is noticeable.

 

What you should do: If you have anyone over age 50 in your family, talk to them about catastrophic illness. If you talk about your options early, you’ll never have to worry about the topic again.

Have you had to have this hard talk with a friend or relative? How did it turn out? What would you advice people to say or avoid?

Filed Under: Insurance, Planning, risk management Tagged With: discussion, Long-term care, ltc, statistics, strategy

Disability Insurance Optional? I Think Not. – Our Boner of the Week!

January 2, 2012 by Average Joe 6 Comments

Hey, it’s always fun to say stuff off the cuff with friends, but when you have readers who take your words seriously and act on them….it’s probably best to do some research first. Our Boner of the Week! Is the most outrageous thing I’ve read on the internet in the last seven days.

…and we’re back to personal finance blogs!

A well-known blogger this week described disability insurance as “optional” in an article about types of insurance you should pursue. Really? Maybe it’s “optional” in the same way other insurances may be bypassed if you have other forms of coverage, but I don’t think it’s “optional” like the guacamole on my nachos at Buffalo Wild Wings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really a guacamole or disability insurance lover, but I can safely pass on the former. The latter….well, let us see for ourselves…..

When you’re deciding which insurances you need, disability coverage should be at the top of your list.

Here are the reasons why:

– If you can’t work, you can’t feed yourself without income. Unless you’re hoping for that awesome government check every month, disability insurance will protect your family and your things. Know why? You’ll still have income.

– Don’t think it’s going to happen to you? Think again. There’s some great news when it comes to auto accidents. Roads are becoming safer. There were just over 33,000 highway accident fatalities in 2009, as compared to over 43,000 in 2005. Instead of dying, people are just maimed.

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Gratuitous Kind-of-Funny Picture to Break Up the Post!

Need Statistics? How about these eye-popping numbers on disability:

o As of 2009, persons in the U.S. have a 12 percent chance of suffering a disability. (Cornell University)

o Just over 1 in 4 persons who are 20 years old today will suffer a disability. (Council for Disability Awareness)

o Over 12 percent of the population is currently disabled. (CDA)

o 61 percent of wage earners personally know someone who has been disabled for three months or longer during their working career. (CDA)

Insurance is about odds. I dislike insurance policies as much as the next guy. That’s why my goal is to only buy insurances that I’ll probably need and avoid those that I won’t. Because I’m determining the chance of risk, it makes sense for me to check the probability of the occurance of need.

So, let’s examine the chances of a disability vs. other types of insurance listed in the piece:

Disability: 1:12 (Cornell University, listed above)

Auto: 5.67:100 (collision claims, according to Insurance Information Institute)

Home: 6:100 (Insurance Information Institute)

In fact, the author of the piece acknowledges the high rate of disability but still lists it as optional insurance. I can’t understand this logic.

Life insurance isn’t considered optional in her piece…in fact it’s listed as the third most important type of coverage (behind auto and health). But to express it in the most crude terms possible….isn’t your family better off if you’re dead than if you’re sucking down food and taking up space? They’ll have to cart you to the doctor and help you with basic activities. You’ll use electricity as you watch television or listen to the radio instead of work. It’s not fun for you and expensive for your family.

Not working? Long Term Care coverage isn’t even mentioned in the blogger’s piece and represents a huge hole in the financial plans of retirees who have enough money to protect but not enough to withstand the huge costs associated with custodial care on a daily basis. I won’t go into these facts here, because it’s slightly off-topic.

I’m tired of:

– “financial professionals” describing insurances and listing disability policies as the stepchild of the industry.

– consumers saying “I have disability through work, so I’m all set.” Workplace disability coverage often is capped at a staggeringly low amount of coverage. Why? Because a disability is expensive and insurance to cover a disability is expensive. Do your homework before flippantly deciding that “my insurance through work is enough.”

Still, maybe the blogger is off the hook. Here’s when you don’t need disability coverage:

1) if you have enough money to cover a disability, you can self-insure.

2) if your income stream comes from places that would be unaffected by your disability, and your health care coverage will tackle additional costs.

I’d like to believe that when she wrote “optional” next to disability insurance she meant to write “optional” next to every insurance coverage. Otherwise, I’m sure she meant that you should explore disability insurance as thoroughly as you would health, auto, home and life insurance.

Dearest minions,

When some professional writer, television talking head, or paid advisor tells you to look past an insurance type, always reach for statistics. Although I’m as bad at math as the next personal financial blogger, the numbers will usually find a way to lead me to the truth. The truth in this case: find adequate disability coverage.

Now it’s your turn. What insurances aren’t “optional” in your life? Which do you skip and take the risk?

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Filed Under: Planning, risk management, smack down! Tagged With: Disability, Disability insurance, Insurance, Long-term care

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