caregivers Archives - Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen

LTC Insurance is Still Useful While Living in a CCRC

October 16, 2019 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

As a resident at Shell Point Retirement Community (SPRC), I have had a number of interesting, eye-opening conversations with my neighbors. Many of them believe that living in a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) is an opportunity stop paying for their long term care insurance (LTCi), now that their care is provided by the facility. On the contrary, there are plenty of reasons you’ll want to continue maintaining your LTC insurance in a CCRC.

Before you make this potentially dangerous decision for yourself or your parents, take a moment to review the following list of expenses that can by paid for by LTC insurance. Without the benefit of LTCi, these costs will be paid out-of-pocket by the resident or family.

1. Paying for Home Care

Sally’s mother lived in SPRC for 26 years. Although she needed care, her mother did not own long term care insurance (LTCi), since she believed the CCRC would cover the costs of her needs. Over the years, Sally’s mother was unwilling to accept the fact that her health was deteriorating and that she needed additional care. Ideally, she would have moved to the on-site assisted living facility or elected for home care. She would not admit this.

The majority of CCRC’s pay for assisted living or nursing home care, but they don’t pay for home care.

As you’ll hear in Sally’s video testimony below, her mother was unwilling to pay for home care, even though she could afford it. She wanted to preserve her estate for the benefit of her children. Her situation got so dangerous that Sally had to enlist intervention by a professional to “force” her mother into better care. Sally realizes now that the entire situation could have been avoided if her mother had been covered by a LTCi policy.

2. One More Story About Needing Home Care

When Hugh and his wife moved here to SPRC, they assumed that they no longer needed their LTC insurance in a CCRC, since the cost of assisted living and nursing care was included. So they stopped paying their monthly LTCi premiums and let their policies lapse.

In her last months, Hugh’s wife became extremely disabled, needing care above and beyond what the assisted living facility could legally provide. Hugh was advised to move his wife to the on-site nursing home so she could receive the care she needed.

While life in the assisted living center provides a cheery, home-like atmosphere, the nursing home is more sterile and institutional. Hugh just couldn’t bear moving his wife into the nursing home. So he chose to keep her in the assisted living facility and supplement her care with 24 hour a day caregivers.

Hugh had to pay for his wife’s caregivers out of his own pocket. As he shared his story with me, I told him about my work. He recognized how much he regretted giving up their long term care insurance. He knows that if they’d kept their policies active, the cost needed for his wife’s additional care would have been covered.

3. Visiting Your Hairdresser

We often see wheelchair or walker-bound residents in our beauty salons, restaurants, walkways, or swimming pool. These are typically assisted living residents. They’re accompanied by scrub-clad caregivers. The cost of this personalized care is paid out-of-pocket and can really add up over time. With proper planning, LTCi can often help pay for these costs.

4. Meals Aren’t Free

You had to eat before, and you continue to need to eat when you reside in an assisted living facility. Eating is not part of long term care. Your high quality care is paid by the CCRC, but meals are not included. In my community, for example, there is an additional charge of approximately $1,000/month to cover meals. LTCi can help pay for this.

5. Apartment Space

At our CCRC, if you live in a fairly small home, you’ll be assigned a smaller assisted living apartment. If, however, you want to upgrade and move into a larger apartment, LTC insurance can often pay for the additional cost of a larger assisted living apartment at the CCRC. That’s right! Your long term care insurance payments could help cover the extra charges for more spacious living or a better view.

6. The Unexpected Need for an Off-site Facility

Nancy’s husband was stricken with Lewy Body Dementia. If this sounds familiar, this is the same illness that actor Robin Williams suffered from. This form of dementia can damage thinking and alertness. Symptoms can include physical stiffness, hallucinations and even violence.

As a result of his condition, Nancy’s husband became physically violent and needed more care than SPRC could safely provide. Despite their best efforts, SPRC was unable to keep him on-site. Nancy was forced to find an off-site facility that could properly care for her husband. Those unexpected costs (paid without the benefit of LTCi coverage) nearly demolished her savings.

Hold On to Your LTCi

Moving to a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC) does not mean it’s time to end your long term care insurance policy. In fact, this may be the time you most want that peace of mind.

Now is the time to start planning for your future needs. Click here to receive a free, no-obligation quote for your own LTCi policy.

All the Single Ladies, All the Single Ladies… LTCi and Single Women

September 30, 2019 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

The need for long term care doesn’t think about your gender, your financial success or even your age. A life-changing medical crisis can barrel into your life when you least expect it, like an unexpected car accident. Or, it can sneak up on you, introducing subtle symptoms over time, barely noticeable. We see this, for example, with Alzheimer’s disease in people even in their 40s. What we do know is that single women are more in need for long term care insurance (LTCi) than others.

The Special Case for LTCi and Single Women

The two major factors driving the need of LTCi by women are longevity and caregiving.

It probably won’t surprise you to read that women live longer than men. More than two-thirds of Americans over the age of 85 are women. And 80% of centenarians are women. It’s no wonder most residents in nursing homes are women.

At the age of 75, almost 70% of women are single (widowed, divorced or never married). This means they typically live alone, without help with their daily tasks. And because of their historically lower earnings, single women at this age have significantly lower income from Social Security and other retirement plans.

Women are also more likely to be providing care for family members. 75% of people providing home care are women and typically a daughter caring for her mother. On average, she will devote 20 hours each week taking care of her mother. However, 1 in 6 caregivers will provide 40+ hours each week.

Older Women and Poverty

A report compiled by Justice in Aging last year found that out of the 7.1 million older adults that live in poverty, nearly two-thirds of them are women.

The report points to a number of issues that impact the incidence of poverty among women (You can click here to read the full report).

Wage Gap and Low Paying Jobs — 70% of workers earning $10/hour or less are women.
Caregiving — Caring for children and/or parents takes time away from paid employment.
Higher Health Care Costs — A 65-year old woman will spend $47,000 more in health care than a 65-year old man.
Domestic Violence — Affects physical and mental health, so it keeps women in poverty.
Wealth Gap — The Wage Gap reduces many women’s ability to accumulate wealth over their lifetimes.

If you are a woman, you are more likely to need medical care in your later years. Even if that care doesn’t begin until your 70s or 80s. If you have spent years taking care of parents and/or children, this is the time to start thinking about taking care of yourself.

Click here to receive a free, no-obligation quote for your own LTCi policy.

Indecision Paralysis Can Be Very Expensive

August 20, 2019 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

I had a phone conversation with a 62-year old woman I’ll call Margaret who was interested in learning more about long term care insurance (LTCi). She still works full-time, and her “off hours” are completely dedicated to caring for her husband who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. She wanted to learn about LTCi costs and how it works.

In our chat, Margaret quickly revealed some details about her own health: a long-time smoker and her frail stature. She described the daily demands of her time and energy, caring for her husband after putting in a full day at her job. I could feel the weight of her words as she shared her concerns with me.

For now, her husband is able to stay home unsupervised while she works. Margaret understands that this is only temporary, as her husband’s condition continues to decline. And she worries that if he should fall during the day, it could result in very dangerous, if not fatal, injury.

Margaret’s nights and weekends are consumed with caring for her husband. She has no social life outside of the home. And she is keenly aware that the day is coming when she can no longer leave her husband unsupervised.

Will she have to

Hire a professional caregiver?
Move her husband into a facility, separating them for the first time in their 40+ year marriage?
Leave her job?

Discussing LTCi Costs

When Margaret and I met, we discussed the current quality of her life. The weight of her responsibility was really taking its toll on her. And it served as her motivation to shield her son from taking on this same role if she ever became unable to care for herself.

Margaret understands better than most the important value of buying LTC insurance.

We talked about the fact that if her husband had an LTCi policy, they both would be benefiting socially, economically, medically, and emotionally. For example, there could be a caregiver in their home, giving her peace of mind while she worked and easing her responsibilities when she came home.

She desired these options for her son so he wouldn’t have to sacrifice so much of his life to take care of her in the later years. We also talked about the quality of life for Margaret, having access to a variety of lifestyle choices and restoring dignity to her days.

Even Knowing All the Facts

Margaret chose not to proceed with her LTCi application. Maybe “chose” is the wrong word. What really happened is that she was paralyzed with indecision. Even though she understood the importance of long term care insurance and saw she could manage the LTCi premiums, she was unable to make that next step. I wish I did not see this as often as I do.

Unfortunately, if Margaret needs long-term care (LTC), she and her son will end up paying a higher price in time, energy, quality of life, and stress.

You don’t have to be caught by surprise, like a deer in the headlights. Take that first, proactive step to protect you and your family. Click here to receive your free no-obligation quote for your own LTCi policy.

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.

Two Options for Funding LTC Expenses

January 27, 2016 by Honey Leave a Comment

In his January 12, 2016 Forbes column, Wade Pfau describes why Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance do not pay for long-term care (LTC). This column describes what can and often does happen, financially and psychologically, even to highly affluent people, when LTC planning is ignored and people wind up self funding for LTC with personal assets.

Mr. Pfau has heart. He gives us facts, but he also shares accurate human insights. He wisely urges people to prepare now for their last years, and to share their plans with those they most trust.

This piece is accurate, accessible and concise.

He states, “For self funding, ask yourself if you have sufficient financial resources to cover an expensive long-term care shock and still meet the remaining financial goals for retirement. Which specific resources could be used for long-term care expenses? How will they be invested? What impact would these expenditures have on the standard of living for remaining household members and potential beneficiaries? Is this a risk that can be accepted, or could insurance provide a positive impact by helping pool this risk?”

“Self funding could force an individual to rely more greatly on family care, which introduces a number of potential opportunity costs not included in formal cost calculations. Caregivers often experience increased stress and health problems, and they could be forced to make sacrifices in their careers that could result in substantially reduced lifetime earnings. The health problems created by providing long-term care could potentially result in the caregiver needing long-term care for themselves as well.”

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