Cash Type Long-Term Care Insurance Archives - Long Term Care Insurance Expert | Honey Leveen

Examining Long-Term Care Insurance

January 19, 2016 by Honey Leave a Comment

In his January 14, 2016 column, Forbes contributor Wade Pfau describes what traditional health-based long-term care insurance (LTCi) is. He describes what determines LTCi prices and gives sound advice on when to buy it.

Mr. Pfau has keen insight that enables him to make complicated things easy to understand.

I love that Mr. Pfau hints at what can happen psychologically to affluent families who must self-insure when a LTC event occurs. He describes this in more detail in his December 22, 2015 Forbes column.

I also love the fact that Mr. Pfau is a financial planner. Far too many financial planners, just like the public in general, do not address LTC planning. After all, LTCi is complicated, and planning for it is a highly unpleasant subject for many.

He states, “At some point, wealth may be sufficient to self-fund long-term care expenses, but reasonable individuals may still decide to include insurance in their plans as part of an overall risk management strategy.”

An unforeseen, expensive “spending shock,” caused by an unplanned long-term care event, can wreak unnecessary, avoidable financial, mental, and physical havoc on families and estates.

Take Care of Your LTCi Before You Take Care of Your Kids

January 21, 2015 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

According to a Genworth study, half of the 1,200 caregivers surveyed said providing care for loved ones took a significant toll on their careers, and 11 percent said they lost their job. Ten percent had to change careers completely. On average, caregivers reported losing one-third of their income when they became caregivers.

Knowledgeable financial advisors recommend taking care of your own long-term care planning first, before giving your kids money.

An October 9, 2015 New York Times article by Constance Gustke says parents are often making things harder for themselves and their kids in the long run by making things too easy for their kids in the short run.

I’ve seen a great many circumstances just like the following, quoted from the article:

“Take Jacquelyn McClellan, 74, who lives in Orange City, Fla. In what admittedly is an extreme case, Ms. McClellan, a retired program analyst for the federal government, began paying for various expenses for her grandchildren after her son said he could not afford them. She paid for dancing school, parochial school, trips to Disneyland, all with the help of money from her pension.

These payments ended up tipping Ms. McClellan into bankruptcy in 2011. Since then, Ms. McClellan has sharply dialed back her own lifestyle. She can’t go on vacation cruises and has only minimal savings.”

Unless it is a true emergency, do your own long-term care planning first, before giving your kids money.

Pseudo Journalism Schlock, Part 1

August 17, 2013 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Beware of newspaper or online columns by “consumer advocates” who are not legitimate journalists.

The following column hit Internet searches set for “long-term care insurance” last week: “Clark Howard: Do your homework before buying long-term care”. What’s not to like about Mr. Howard’s down-home, sincere looking headshot? I’m sure Mr. Howard is a nice guy, but he is not qualified to write about long-term care insurance. Yet, he does.

I’ve already busted Scott Burns, another financial advisor with a newspaper column, who doesn’t need to research his columns in depth before having them published. This is because Mr. Burns, like Mr. Howard, is a financial advisor, not a journalist.

Mr. Howard does not derive much, if any, of his income from his pseudo-journalism. I clicked through to his website. His livelihood appears to come from being some sort of financial advisor. Yet his column gets published online and possibly in the hard-copy Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I’m sure many readers accept what he says without questioning because it looks and seems credible.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. My colleagues and I are exhausted from having to combat the amount of misinformation about long-term care insurance (LTCi) that manages to get published. Mainstream media publishes a lot more misinformation than it does properly researched, accurate information on LTCi.

It is obvious to me and my colleauges that Mr. Howard is speaking out of his a** on the subject of LTCi. A lot of what he’s written does not make sense or is not possible. I guess Mr. Howard had a deadline to meet and was in a time crunch. Clearly, minimal research has been done.

Beware of Mr. Howard, Mr. Burns, and others like him. They are not a journalists. Lack of adequate editorial oversight enables them to give un-researched, false information and have it published, appearing as fact.

In my sequel to this blog, “Pseudo Journalism Schlock, Part II”, I will give the falsehoods in Mr. Howard’s piece and correct them.

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Examining Long-Term Care Insurance

Take Care of Your LTCi Before You Take Care of Your Kids

Pseudo Journalism Schlock, Part 1

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