Uncategorized Archives - Page 5 of 8 - Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen

Caregiving for Elders, Not Children, Denies Women Paychecks

December 29, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

For decades, we’ve heard how women in the workplace were unable to keep pace with their male colleagues. We thought this was partly due to the demands of maternity leave and ongoing parenting responsibilities. Why then, when children left the home, did this pattern seem to continue into the later years of these career women? Enter the “elder-care crisis”, as described in a recent New York Times article.

The author addresses the rising trend of women shifting from child care to elder-care. Because many our aging Americans are unable to care for themselves, their care often falls to their wives and daughters. This results in reduced hours at work, lower paychecks and sometimes leaving their jobs altogether.

In case you’ve missed the statistics:

25% of women aged 45 – 64 are caring for an older relative
14% of women aged 35-55 are caring for an older relative
10% of these women have reduced time at their paying jobs
6% of these women quit their jobs

You can read more about the research here and here.

Who Provides the Care for our Elderly Family Members?

A graph in the NYT article dramatically illustrates that after rising for half a century, the labor force participation rate among prime-age women began to decline sharply in the early 2000’s – right around the time the time the elderly share of the population began to rise sharply.

It’s not a stretch to connect the dots. About 14 million older Americans currently can’t live independently and care for themselves. Unless they’ve purchased long term care insurance (LTCi), the burden of care weighs predominantly on their wives and daughters.

In his book “Who Will Care for Us?” Paul Osterman estimates that there are about 21 million family members caring for an adult relative for no pay. By 2040, he predicts demand for such care will rise to 34 million.

There are a variety of costs associated with caregiving tasks, from financial to emotional. This is one image provided by Merrill Lynch:

You can click here to find additional easy-to-read images.

Unlike the Boomers currently caring for their parents, their millennial children will not have as many siblings to help them care for their parents. Future elderly will also live longer, suggesting that there will be a lot of caregivers well into their 50’s juggling work with caring for children and parents.

The New York Times article ends on an unfortunate note, concluding that “private insurers are not the solution.” If you’ve been following me for any time at all, you know I am strongly in favor of using private insurance as a successful solution. In fact… I’ll take a deeper dive into this in a future blog post.

In the meantime, if you’d like to proactively prepare for the likelihood of needing some form of elder-care, please click here to receive your free LTCi quote.

Who Buys Long Term Care Insurance?

November 8, 2017 by Honey Leave a Comment

A report by AHIP and Lifeplans, two highly reputable entities, came out at the beginning of 2017 that studied which consumers chose to purchase long term care insurance (LTCi) over the last 25 years. They wanted to determine “Who Buys Long Term Care Insurance” and what has changed in the marketplace over time.

They looked at purchasing trends, attitudes around the need for long term care, the perceived role of the federal government, family responsibility and protecting a legacy. One thing is certain: the need for long term care is being more widely recognized.

This report has a ton of valuable information. To read the juicy details, you can read the full results here. For now, let’s take a look at Buyers vs. Non-buyers.

Do You Fit the Profile?

Demographics

Buyers are more likely to be married, college-educated, working, and have high income and assets.
Non-buyers have slightly lower assets. This is echoing what we see every day in our business. There has been a shift in LTCi sales to a much more affluent client than 25 years ago.

Opinions & Attitudes

Buyers are planners. Buyers are more likely to think that they will need LTC in the future in comparison to non-buyers. Conversely, non-buyers choose not to plan for their future medical needs.
Buyers worry less about paying for LTC services than non-buyers. Non-buyers understand that if they need LTC services, the government will not be paying for it, although many non-buyers mistakenly believe that their needs will be provided for by the government.
Buyers tend to believe that they will probably require care in a nursing home or in their own homes at some point in the future. Non-buyers don’t think this is need will likely arise in their lives.

Cost Factors

For non-buyers, cost is the major barrier to becoming a buyer. This hasn’t changed in 25 years. Other reasons include: skepticism about insurance companies, lack of understanding of the real risk of LTC and confusion about what the state and federal governments will or won’t pay for.
Most buyers would prefer smaller, more frequent rate increases than larger, less frequent rate increases.
More than ¾ of non-buyers would be interested in purchasing LTCi if they could deduct the premium from their taxes. They believe that the government should encourage people to buy LTCi by making it fully tax deductible.
Non-buyers favor a government stop loss program of catastrophic coverage where they would buy a smaller LTCi policy that would wrap around a public program. Members of the general population believe in the public financing of LTC.

Other Decisions

For non-buyers, ⅓ don’t plan to purchase in the future, but ⅔ do plan to become buyers at a later date. These later buyers view LTCi as part of a retirement plan and believe that they can postpone becoming buyers until they are closer to retirement.
Most buyers understood that waiting resulted in higher premiums, so they started years before The majority of buyers cited the reason they didn’t delay this purchase until retirement was their understanding that the cost of insurance would increase in the future.
Most buyers don’t buy without seeking advice from other people. Those who most impacted their LTCi buying decision were their spouses/partners and their insurance agents. Most recently, financial advisors are becoming more influential in this decision-making process.
70% of non-buyers say they would be more interested in becoming a buyer if they were able to comparison shop on the internet.

What we see consistently, for over 25 years, is that the #1 reason people buy LTCi is for preservation of assets.

So… Who buys long term care insurance? Maybe you!

Click here to receive a free quote for long term care insurance.

Affluent People Should Self-Insure for LTC, Right?

October 31, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Many affluent people believe that they’re better off using their own money to self-insure long term care (LTC) needs. They view their savings and investments as their personal safety net, their rainy day fund. And yet, with all that financial preparation, they still can’t face the facts when their health declines and it becomes time to get extra care. Acknowledging the truth about your health is very emotional, no matter how much money you have.

When You Self-Insure Long Term Care

The easy part is recognizing that you will, at some time in the distant future, need long term care. Choosing to fund these needs from personal savings could end up working against you.

First of all, with no formal policy in place, how do you know when it’s the right time to start stepping up your level of care? Your long term care insurance has specific guidelines.
Secondly, an LTC insurance plan provides a blueprint for your loved ones to follow. Without this blueprint, nobody really knows how much care you intended to receive.
Even for the highly affluent, financial planners describe unplanned LTC costs as a dangerous “spending shock” that should be avoided.

Once you have a good LTC insurance plan in place, be sure to let your family know about it. Share your plans so they know what you want. Unnecessary sibling disagreements about money may be avoided.

Both affluent and non-affluent families suffer from postponing receiving the care that they need in their later years.

Here’s a great story by Christine Benz, who shares in her opening paragraphs how her parents could well afford to self-insure for long-term care (LTC), but her family denied the need!

Check out my testimonials page for examples of affluent and non-affluent families where LTCi ownership made a huge difference for the better.

I encourage you to avoid denial of your need for long term care! Use your LTCi as you originally intended: to prevent you from being a burden on those you love. Live out your life in comfort and grace!

Click here if you’d like a free quote on long term care insurance for you or someone you love.

Long-Term Care Insurance: Dave Ramsey is Just So Wrong!

May 11, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Celebrity and unlicensed financial advisor, Dave Ramsey, freely gives advice on when to buy long-term care insurance (LTCi) and he is wrong! For about 20 years, my colleagues and I have emailed, written, and called to offer him correct advice on when to buy LTCi. I’m still waiting for his reply.

Dave does not have an insurance license. He let his license lapse in 1996. Clearly, he does not have current knowledge of the LTCi marketplace. This does not stop him from giving advice on it. Worse, this does not stop many listeners from taking his erroneous advice!

Dave’s Advice on Long-term Care Insurance (so wrong!)

TheHere’s Dave’s advice on long-term care insurance: https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/long-term-care-why-age-60. He is a staunch LTCi advocate, but on his terms (he’s the expert, right?). Weirdly, he doesn’t think we need to plan for unexpected emergencies happening before we’re 60 years old. He recommends waiting until age 60 to buy LTCi. I guess he believes nothing adverse will happen to listeners’ health before then. There are additional flaws in his simplistic thinking. Dave admits and does a good job of explaining why people save money by buying LTCi at much younger ages; how puzzling!

I have new clients who recently attended Dave’s Financial Peace University. They are 56 and 61 years old. Based on Dave’s advice, they wanted to postpone applying for LTCi until Mrs. was 60. I offered them correct information on why this is a bad idea. Armed with more accurate information, they went forward with their applications.

The High Cost of Waiting

Mrs. was declined long-term care insurance coverage because of a notation that was recently made to her medical records. She would be completely covered today if only she had applied for coverage 2 years earlier.

The LTCi company approved Mr’s. application, although his premiums are higher than than we expected. This is because after a lifetime of very stable, low prostate levels, his prostate levels have recently climbed. The LTCi carrier spotted this, even though the levels are still well within the normal range. He missed receiving Preferred Rate status by only one year.

The correct age to buy LTCi is age 50 or younger, if at all possible. Each passing year, long-term care insurance rates increase, regardless of health.

For many years, Suze Orman, another unlicensed, beloved celebrity financial pundit, proffered incorrect advice on when to buy LTCi. But she learned firsthand why waiting until age 60 is wrong. See http://www.njltc.com/docs/Suze_Orman.pdf for her retraction of that advice.

The moral of this story is: Do not depend on the advice of popular celebrities!

If you want to take personal responsibility for your long-term care planning and make a confident, well-informed decision on the best plan of action, seek the advice of an experienced, ethical LTCi specialist. The best time to buy LTCi is in your 40’s or 50’s, but we’ll still find affordable rates for you in your 60’s.

New Report Lists TX-specific LTC costs

February 23, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Great new AARP gives monetary value to LTC in TX: https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/ltc/2012/across-the-states-2012-texas-AARP-ppi-ltc.pdf

Reports for other states may be found at https://www.aarp.org/home-garden/livable-communities/info-09-2012/across-the-states-2012-profiles-of-long-term-services-supports-AARP-ppi-ltc.html

Request a Free, No-Obligation LTCi Quote