Long-term care, sometimes called extended care, can actually relate to any time period, whether long or short. This type of coverage differs from health insurance, because while your health insurance might cover some aspects of your extended care like Dr.’s appointments, medications, and emergency visits, your health plan often will not cover things like caregiver expenses, assisted living facilities, or sometimes care for rehabilitation after a significant injury. These extra expenses can often be holes in what we call, the umbrella of Longevity Health Planning. These holes in your health coverage can hold a significant impact over your financial future. At Clear Solutions Insurance Services, we are an insurance broker that cares about your coverage throughout your journey through life, and we want to empower you with the knowledge and tools to fill those gaps and complete your Longevity Health Plan.
Life happens, whether you’re prepared for it or not. But the better prepared you are will determine the consequences that you and your family are going to face with those “life happens” events.
The older you get, the higher the percentage of needing care. Many people’s biggest fear or concern when it comes to retirement is outliving their money. Yet, they aren’t always ready to invest in long term care insurance. With long-term care, there are 3 costs that take the greatest toll on you and your family.
It can be emotionally overwhelming to be a caregiver. Ask anyone who has been a caregiver and they will tell you about the emotional cost.
It’s a known fact that people who are caregivers generally pass away not long after the person they were caring for. The stress can be overwhelming.
People often underestimate the financial cost because we never see ourselves in that situation. Income streams you’ve designated for something else could be needed to cover a long-term care expense instead.
There are four basic options available when you plan for long-term care. Your income, your government, your family, and long-term care coverage.
The effect on your income when a need for extended care arises depends on whether you’re still working or not. Paying for care out of income, savings, or retirement funds requires doing the math. Maybe you think you have enough investment assets to weather the storm, but to truly determine the consequence of a care need is to understand the impact on your income, not just your assets.
Medicare is often not an option, because in order to be considered for extended care funding, there are strict criteria that must be met. If so, this option will only provide funding for a total of 100 days. The VA benefit is available for veterans and their spouses, however if you are not a veteran, then this benefit isn’t available to you. Medicaid has become the largest provider of long-term care funding in this country, but the deductible is a bit high, which is your net worth.
Sadly, this option can often become the default choice. This is mainly due to no other plan being put into place, and the family having no other choice. Perhaps the caregiver would be your spouse, or your children and/or their spouse. Ask yourself, would you prefer to have your spouse supervise your care or be your caregiver? Would you rather have your children put their lives on hold to be your caregiver, or give them the gift of continuing to live their own lives? When it comes to depending on your family to provide your care, it’s important to have the hard conversation beforehand to make sure everyone understands and is on board with all that experience could entail.
There are many options available to consider when it comes to insurance funding plans. You can look at traditional long-term care insurance, short-term care/recovery care insurance, home health care insurance, life, or annuities bundled with a long-term care benefit, and more.
At Clear Solutions Insurance Services, we are well versed in all elements of income protection and longevity health planning, and can help you decide which funding concept is most suitable for you. Tom can design a plan specific to your needs, balancing affordability and desired coverages. These are very specialized options and his guidance can help determine which options make the most sense for your personal situation.
Clear Solutions Insurance Services is here to educate and empower you with income protection planning, providing you with the proper confidence, knowledge, and tools to help protect your greatest asset: you.
You also get access to our FREE online eligibility assessment tool and direct access to Tom to answer your questions and help with coaching if you desire.
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