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Happy Alzheimer’s Awareness Month!

November 28, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

November is officially Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. This is the perfect time to better understand how so many families are affected by this disease. Especially since most families don’t see it coming until it’s too late to do any effective planning.

Less than 2 million people were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1983. Currently, about 5.5 million people have it. By 2050, that number could rise to 60 million. Click here for a breakdown of some simple facts put together by the Alzheimer’s Association. I bet you find a few surprises in there!

The average long term care insurance (LTCi) claim lasts about three years, although I’ve had many clients’ claims last much longer. In fact, I expect that as more people are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, LTCi claims will continue to lengthen.

In Honor of Alzheimer’s Awareness Month

It’s time to raise your Alzheimer’s awareness! To help you out, here are just a few of the articles that have made the news:

RAND Corporation Reports on the Readiness of the American Health Care System

Here’s a Washington Post article that shares some findings from a recent study from the RAND Corporation. Turns out, even the health care system is underprepared to treat the rising tide of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. A major concern is developing early screening.

“Once people are in the grip of dementia, it’s too late. Any successful treatment probably will need to be given when the disease is nascent — before it has significantly eroded people’s memories and personalities.”

Bill Gates Joins the Search for Treatment

Did you hear?? Bill Gates recently invested $50 million in the Dementia Discovery Fund to support their efforts to find more treatment options.

“… my personal experience has exposed me to how hopeless it feels when you or a loved one gets the disease. We’ve seen scientific innovation turn once-guaranteed killers like HIV into chronic illnesses that can be held in check with medication. I believe we can do the same (or better) with Alzheimer’s.”

You can read more about Gates’ motivation and vision in this thoughtful piece he wrote.

Honey Leveen – Past Blogs on Alzheimer’s Disease

Most people are simply unprepared for the physical, financial, and emotional tolls Alzheimer’s can take on the patient, their family and their close friends. I’ve written extensively about this over the years to help raise Alzheimer’s awareness. This link will guide you to a number of past blogs I’ve shared.

Genworth Video Library

As we move to prepare for the likely onset of Alzheimer’s, we know that time is our enemy and knowledge is our greatest defense. Genworth has built a great collection of short videos. You can hear how people have used their long term care insurance plans when these life events happen.

Have You Had The Talk Yet?

There are also some helpful videos that guide us through these difficult conversations with our family. As families are gathering together during this holiday season, take the opportunity to have “The Talk”. Your parents or your children need to understand what’s ahead. Need a little encouragement?

If you are interested in planning for your long term care needs, the first step is getting a quote for good coverage. Click here to receive your personalized quote.

How Could This Happen? A Story of Procrastination

September 18, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

“June 22, 2012 – Patient needs assistance at home, currently does not need medical care. Patient lives very remotely and may not be able to find certified caretakers,” read the physician’s comments on the “Evaluation of Cognitive Impairment” form. And just like that, the patient (my client) became eligible to start receiving long term care insurance payments. “Diagnosis: G30.1 Alzheimer’s”

With this diagnosis, many of us would immediately spring into research mode. We would take a deep dive into the science around this disease, build an understanding of the future symptoms and also determine what care would be needed as the disease advanced.

Many of us would, but not everyone. Because in order to begin the research, we must first accept the reality of our new circumstances.

Three Years Later…

His wife (also my client) called me two years ago, asking me to review his policy with her. We discussed his diagnosis. I recommended that she hire home care, as originally recommended by the doctor. I also suggested that she research other options that would probably be needed in the future, like assisted living.

His long term care insurance (LTCi) policy currently pays $208 per day for home care, assisted living, nursing home care, and more. This couple is eligible to receive over $6,000 per month! It would have begun payments on the first day he needed care, covering up to four years at home and unlimited time in an assisted living facility.

Last Month: Still Not Claiming Long Term Care Insurance Payments

His wife called again just a couple of weeks ago, asking for another policy review. I could tell she was stressed and distracted. Her mind was unfocused. She was too distraught to fully digest my answers to her questions. She also had questions that had nothing to do with the LTCi policy.

I could feel the fear, as she was finally facing the reality of her husband’s condition. I wish I could have sat with her, rubbed her shoulders, and given her a hot cup of tea. In retirement, this couple had moved to a very rural area in Colorado and they have limited access to traditional care.

By the way, even in very rural areas, there are fantastic alternative solutions available, including ways to locate qualified caregivers. Especially, like my client, if your LTCi provides the financial coverage for these needs.

The High Cost of Delayed Filing

Primary family caregivers typically suffer physical, mental, and financial problems twice as often as non-caregivers. Purchasing a LTCi policy will significantly ease these challenges. But that’s only the first step.

You also have to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and ask for help. You’ve faithfully paid the premiums all these years. This help is yours to receive.

The husband’s long term care insurance payments could have already provided many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in claim payments by now. Their lives could have been far less stressful with more joy and dignity.

With LTCi, as with other things in life, planning ahead can greatly reduce suffering. This couple did the right thing, the wise thing, when they bought their LTCi. When they heard the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, they sunk into denial. Very, very powerful, unnecessesarily stressful denial, with expensive consequences, both financially and emotionally.

Your LTCi purchase is about preserving wealth. But more importantly, your LTCi purchase is about having dignity, options, and access to high quality care when needed.

We have control over whether to be honest about the truth or deny it.

Take the first step in planning for an easier life. Click here to receive a free quote for long term care insurance.

When to File Your LTCi Claim? Don’t Wait!

September 4, 2017 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

When my clients buy long term care insurance (LTCi), they are typically healthy. The idea of actually using the policy benefits feels waaay out in the future. So when their health begins to decline, there can be a lot of emotional denial. They don’t want to accept that their change in health status is not temporary and they postpone asking for help. They forfeit collecting many thousands of dollars from their LTCi. This is all unnecessary hardship. The solution? File your long term care insurance claim as soon as you qualify.

Time to Get Real

Your close circle of support (spouse, kids, friends & neighbors) will pitch in and help you. They may also be in denial. They’ll do their best to provide the care they think you need, but their good intentions can only go so far.

Family and friends are not prepared or trained for the level of support needed. Often, there is undue stress, confusion, dysfunction, depression and resentment. People are re-acting, not pro-acting to circumstances. This produces the opposite of the dignified, graceful decline you envisioned for yourself.

When You File Your Long Term Care Insurance Claim

LTCi policies pay out large – often lavish – sums of money, enabling you to freely choose and access the type of care you want, with little pause or concern about money. LTCi’s purpose is to ensure your dignity, options, and choices. This is why you purchased it! If dignity, options and choices are what you want, this cannot happen until you are honest and realistic about your condition and prognosis, from the date of diagnosis! This is when you need to need to research, explore, make concrete LTC plans, and make them known.

Affluent people should self-insure for LTC, right?

You might think affluent people with more than enough money to “self-insure” for future long term care would recognize when it was time to pay for extra care. Nope! The decision to request help often isn’t about financial ability to pay. Facing the true condition of declining health is primarily an emotional matter.

For affluent people, having long term care insurance (and letting your family know you have it), provides a blueprint for your loved ones to follow. Your family is more likely to know what you want even if you may not be able to tell them at the time. The costs of your health care are taken care of which can help avoid unnecessary disagreements among your children. But not until you file your long term care insurance claim.

Both affluent and non-affluent families suffer from denial of long term care need. Yet the cost of this care can be so great that, even for the highly affluent, financial planners describe unplanned LTC costs as a dangerous “spending shock” that should be avoided.

Peruse my testimonials page for examples of families from both ends of the income spectrum where LTCi ownership made a huge difference for the best.

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

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, and live out your life in comfort and grace! And it all begins when you file your long term care insurance claim.

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

Understanding Rate Hikes

November 18, 2013 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

As far as I can tell, every reputable long-term care insurance (LTCi) carrier that’s sold LTCi for more than five years has given its policyholders at least one rate hike. I will attempt to explain what causes LTCi rate hikes and what to do about them.

What causes rate hikes?

LTC insurance policies have extraordinarily high persistency, which means that about 95% of all LTCi, industry-wide, remains on the books after it is sold. When LTCi is properly placed, hardly anyone ever drops their policy. LTCi persistency is higher than actuaries anticipated
LTCi policies also have incredibly long “tails”, meaning that an LTCi policy sold to a 55-year old might stay on the books 30 or more years before it is collected from
Protracted, low, interest rates
Claims that last longer than expected

These characteristics combine to cause a perfect actuarial storm for LTCi carriers and policyholders.

LTCi’s high persistency rate and long tail are unique. Because of both of these traits, when an LTCi policy is issued, the carrier must post very large amounts of reserve funds. The carrier invests the reserves in conservative, long-term assets. The majority of LTCi’s profitability is derived from interest earned on these posted reserve funds. When interest rates plummeted unexpectedly in recent years and stayed down for so long, when policies experienced higher than predicted persistency rates, longer “tails” and claim durations, prior actuarial assumptions became incorrect. Rate hikes are a means to adjust for these inaccurate assumptions and to ensure that all policies are paid in full when clients collect on them.

It’s a good thing LTCi carriers do this. They act in a responsible way. I would rather have LTCi carriers give rate hikes to be able to honor their obligations to policyholders, than behave like the federal government and make financial commitments that it cannot meet in the future.

If clients cannot increase their payments to cover the rate hikes, the majority of LTCi carriers allow policyholders to pare back their LTCi at time to get their premiums back down. Even if an LTCi policy needs to get pared back to keep its premiums affordable, the policyholder will normally still have a high-performance policy.

What causes public alarm and outcry over LTCi rate hikes?

When I get client calls in response to news of their LTCi rate hike, reactions typically consist of fear, anger or a mixture of both.

I blame the media and the insurance industry for much of these reactions.

The media is historically under-educated on the subject of LTCi. Today, with fewer journalists and less freedom than ever to adequately research before tight deadlines, the media often gets the story of LTCi rate hikes all wrong. There are exceptions. Terry Savage is one. She’s one of a dying breed of true journalists with the luxury of being able to meticulously research her stories before they’re published. More often than not, media runs “if it bleeds, it leads” stories about LTCi. Such incorrect stories describing “intolerable” LTCi rate hikes, without providing adequate explanation, are the norm in mainstream media, not the exception.

The insurance industry must also accept some blame because of its high employee turnover. It is highly unusual for the selling agent to be still active, accountable and present when clients receive rate hikes. And when policy holders inquiring about the increased premiums do not receive the proper explanations and information, their logical reaction is a combination of anger and fear. When this results, lacking a competent agent’s insight, help and advice, policyholders too often make the wrong decision about their LTCi policies.

The truth is, even with rate hikes factored in, the original LTCi policy is normally still a steal of a deal. It is easy to prove this. All we need to do is take the rate hiked LTCi policy’s current monthly or daily benefit (if it has built-in automatic growth every year, its current values are usually significantly higher than what the policy started at). We then compare rates for a replacement LTCi policy at the policyholder’s current age, not their original buying age. When we compare the prices of equivalent new coverage with the present policy’s benefits, and at the client’s present age, the results are normally quite shocking. Even with the rate hike taken into account, the original LTCi policy is still very inexpensive, compared to what a new, comparable policy would cost.

In my experience, policyholders calm down when they understand the impact of insurers’ claims experience and low interest rates. When the circumstances causing LTCi rates hikes are explained to them in a businesslike, rational, professional manner, the majority of my clients choose to keep their LTCi policies and tolerate the rate hike.

I lament that so many LTCi policyholders have no one they can trust and turn to for advice when their rate hike letter arrives. This can cause unintended, bad headlines and publicity for LTCi. This in turn gives people and families additional excuses to put off having conversations about responsible and reasonable long-term care planning.

I have seen in excess of 300 of my clients’ LTCi policies pay out lavishly and with ease, exactly as planned. This has given my clients increased dignity and options. It has prevented much stress and strife, both emotional and financial, for my clients families. I have never had a single claim denied in the 23 years I’ve been in practice.

Caregiver Daughter is Exhausted, Angry

June 10, 2013 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Here’s the June 3, 2013 Dear Abby column. I hear variations of this same story almost every day. It’s a story of resentment, anger, and wasted dreams.

The family member needing care most likely chose to avoid having a conversation about responsible – and reasonable – long-term care planning when they were able to.

“DEAR ABBY: I took care of my grandmother until her death a few years ago, and now my mother is very sick. I feel angry because I’m only 23, and it seems all I have ever done is take care of sick people. I sit at the hospital sometimes just fuming.

Mom was a smoker and now she has cancer. I keep thinking if she hadn’t smoked, she wouldn’t be in this fix, and neither would I. I always visit her and try to do everything she asks of me, and yet I think I’m starting to hate her. I dread going to the hospital, sitting there and waiting for test results, etc. What kind of daughter has feelings like this? — WORST DAUGHTER ON EARTH

DEAR DAUGHTER: Please stop beating yourself up. Your feelings are normal. You have a right to be angry that your mother is sick. At 23, you have had an unusual amount of responsibility thrust upon you for someone your age. That her disease has taken over your life is also a reason to be angry.

However, please stop blaming her for her illness. Right now, you need each other. And nonsmokers get cancer, too. The American Cancer Society has support groups where family members can safely share their feelings. Please check them out.”

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