![\"Portland](\"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Portland-LTC-2020.png\")
<\/p>\n
In Santa Cruz, California, in 2020, Genworth reports the monthly median costs of care: <\/p>\n
![\"LTC](\"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/LTC-Santa-Cruz-2020-.png\")
<\/p>\n
Now that we have your attention, let\u2019s identify the issues you should consider as you think about this topic. The question we\u2019re trying to answer is, \u201cShould I buy long term care insurance?\u201d We\u2019ll find that this topic is complex and for many people the answer isn\u2019t obvious.<\/p>\n
Family Health History<\/strong><\/h2>\nPerhaps the place to start is with your family. Did your grandparents, parents, or aunts and uncles need care? If so, why did they need care? How long did the care last? Who provided the care? <\/p>\n
Did the generations before you have conditions that are sometimes passed down through families? For example, Alzheimer\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s disease, dementia, cancer, arthritis, or high blood pressure?<\/p>\n
What kind of lives did these family members live? Did they eat well? Did they exercise? Did they smoke, drink, or have other unhealthy habits? Did they visit the doctor for annual exams, and practice preventative health care? If they needed care, can you conclude that their lifestyles led to their need for it?<\/p>\n
Personal Health Profile<\/strong><\/h2>\nNow consider yourself. If you\u2019re female, statistically you\u2019re more likely to need care. If you\u2019re single, you\u2019re more likely to need care than someone who\u2019s married. The older you are, the more likely you\u2019ll need care. <\/p>\n
Do you eat well? Is your diet balanced properly? How much alcohol do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you use recreational drugs? Do you exercise regularly? Do you visit your personal doctor for an annual exam and follow her recommendations for healthy life? Do you practice a religion? Do you meditate? <\/p>\n
Health care professionals tell us that the likelihood of needing care is closely related to how well we take care of ourselves. So, if you want to avoid ever needing care, you should make a lifelong commitment to living a healthy life. <\/p>\n
Sources of Support<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you do need care at some point, who will provide it? Will your spouse or partner be able to help you? How old is your spouse? How capable of caring for you are they? What kind of care might you need, and for how long? What about children? If you have children, would they care for you? Could they? Where do they live? Could they step away from their lives to become your caregiver?<\/p>\n
Surveys tell us that most care is provided by family members in the family home. While that may be true, we know that family caregivers take on a great burden. Providing care is physically, emotionally and psychologically draining. <\/p>\n
You should think carefully about whether it\u2019s realistic to have a family member provide care for you. Also, if a family member does provide care, your needs may eventually exceed the ability of your family to provide it. Then what?<\/p>\n
Financial Considerations<\/strong><\/h2>\nOne of the reasons most care is provided by family members is that few families have the funds to pay for outside care. They don\u2019t have savings set aside to pay for care and they don\u2019t own long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your situation? Do you have money set aside specifically for long-term care later in life? Do you own long-term care insurance? We saw above how expensive care can be. A three-year period of care could easily cost more than $200,000. How would you pay for it?<\/p>\n
Most states have agreements with Medicaid to provide long-term care services for those individuals who have extremely limited resources to pay for it. A full discussion of this approach is beyond the scope of this article. But if you have little savings, you should explore how you might qualify for long-term care through your state and Medicaid.<\/p>\n
Long-Term Care Insurance<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you think you may need care one day, but you don\u2019t want to set aside several hundred thousand dollars for it, you should consider long-term care insurance. There are several varieties of long-term care insurance. Traditional long-term care insurance provides a daily benefit for a specified period. The benefit is indexed for inflation, so your purchasing power is preserved. An example would be a policy that provides a $200 per day benefit for up to three years, with a waiting period of 90 days before benefits can be paid.<\/p>\n
Hybrid long-term care insurance combines life insurance and long-term care insurance. The contract pays for care, if you need it. There is also a death benefit. The less care you need, the greater the death benefit. <\/p>\n
Some cash value life insurance policies include a so-called \u201cliving benefits\u201d rider that provides a portion of the death benefit if you become terminally ill. You could use these funds to pay for medical expenses, including care.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re someone who generally buys insurance to transfer risk, you should consider some form of long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
Have a Plan<\/strong><\/h2>\nWe\u2019ve discussed many factors involved with long-term care. Now you should develop your own plan.<\/p>\n
Where will you live as you get older and less physically capable? Do you need to modify your home, so that you can \u201cage in place?\u201d <\/p>\n
If you reach a point where you can no longer perform one or more of the ADLs, what will you do? Who will provide the care? How will you pay for it?<\/p>\n
The sobering reality is that most of us will need assistance at some point in life. Plan for it. You may never need help. But, if you do, you\u2019ll be ready.<\/p>\n
Looking for Guidance?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you need help thinking about long-term care insurance, consider working with a Certified Financial Planner<\/strong><\/a>\u2122 (CFP\u00ae). Advisors who hold this designation have met rigorous educational, experience and ethics requirements.<\/p>\nIf you\u2019re looking for help with your retirement planning – including exploring long-term care insurance – contact us today to see how our team at Springwater Wealth can help you.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Service will get your attention. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans will use long-term care services at some point in their lives. The average period of care is three years. Women need care for an average of 3.7 years. Men need care for an average […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,152,11],"tags":[66,69,70,83,94,99,118,140],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Now consider yourself. If you\u2019re female, statistically you\u2019re more likely to need care. If you\u2019re single, you\u2019re more likely to need care than someone who\u2019s married. The older you are, the more likely you\u2019ll need care. <\/p>\n
Do you eat well? Is your diet balanced properly? How much alcohol do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you use recreational drugs? Do you exercise regularly? Do you visit your personal doctor for an annual exam and follow her recommendations for healthy life? Do you practice a religion? Do you meditate? <\/p>\n
Health care professionals tell us that the likelihood of needing care is closely related to how well we take care of ourselves. So, if you want to avoid ever needing care, you should make a lifelong commitment to living a healthy life. <\/p>\n
Sources of Support<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you do need care at some point, who will provide it? Will your spouse or partner be able to help you? How old is your spouse? How capable of caring for you are they? What kind of care might you need, and for how long? What about children? If you have children, would they care for you? Could they? Where do they live? Could they step away from their lives to become your caregiver?<\/p>\n
Surveys tell us that most care is provided by family members in the family home. While that may be true, we know that family caregivers take on a great burden. Providing care is physically, emotionally and psychologically draining. <\/p>\n
You should think carefully about whether it\u2019s realistic to have a family member provide care for you. Also, if a family member does provide care, your needs may eventually exceed the ability of your family to provide it. Then what?<\/p>\n
Financial Considerations<\/strong><\/h2>\nOne of the reasons most care is provided by family members is that few families have the funds to pay for outside care. They don\u2019t have savings set aside to pay for care and they don\u2019t own long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your situation? Do you have money set aside specifically for long-term care later in life? Do you own long-term care insurance? We saw above how expensive care can be. A three-year period of care could easily cost more than $200,000. How would you pay for it?<\/p>\n
Most states have agreements with Medicaid to provide long-term care services for those individuals who have extremely limited resources to pay for it. A full discussion of this approach is beyond the scope of this article. But if you have little savings, you should explore how you might qualify for long-term care through your state and Medicaid.<\/p>\n
Long-Term Care Insurance<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you think you may need care one day, but you don\u2019t want to set aside several hundred thousand dollars for it, you should consider long-term care insurance. There are several varieties of long-term care insurance. Traditional long-term care insurance provides a daily benefit for a specified period. The benefit is indexed for inflation, so your purchasing power is preserved. An example would be a policy that provides a $200 per day benefit for up to three years, with a waiting period of 90 days before benefits can be paid.<\/p>\n
Hybrid long-term care insurance combines life insurance and long-term care insurance. The contract pays for care, if you need it. There is also a death benefit. The less care you need, the greater the death benefit. <\/p>\n
Some cash value life insurance policies include a so-called \u201cliving benefits\u201d rider that provides a portion of the death benefit if you become terminally ill. You could use these funds to pay for medical expenses, including care.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re someone who generally buys insurance to transfer risk, you should consider some form of long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
Have a Plan<\/strong><\/h2>\nWe\u2019ve discussed many factors involved with long-term care. Now you should develop your own plan.<\/p>\n
Where will you live as you get older and less physically capable? Do you need to modify your home, so that you can \u201cage in place?\u201d <\/p>\n
If you reach a point where you can no longer perform one or more of the ADLs, what will you do? Who will provide the care? How will you pay for it?<\/p>\n
The sobering reality is that most of us will need assistance at some point in life. Plan for it. You may never need help. But, if you do, you\u2019ll be ready.<\/p>\n
Looking for Guidance?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you need help thinking about long-term care insurance, consider working with a Certified Financial Planner<\/strong><\/a>\u2122 (CFP\u00ae). Advisors who hold this designation have met rigorous educational, experience and ethics requirements.<\/p>\nIf you\u2019re looking for help with your retirement planning – including exploring long-term care insurance – contact us today to see how our team at Springwater Wealth can help you.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Service will get your attention. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans will use long-term care services at some point in their lives. The average period of care is three years. Women need care for an average of 3.7 years. Men need care for an average […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,152,11],"tags":[66,69,70,83,94,99,118,140],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
One of the reasons most care is provided by family members is that few families have the funds to pay for outside care. They don\u2019t have savings set aside to pay for care and they don\u2019t own long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s your situation? Do you have money set aside specifically for long-term care later in life? Do you own long-term care insurance? We saw above how expensive care can be. A three-year period of care could easily cost more than $200,000. How would you pay for it?<\/p>\n
Most states have agreements with Medicaid to provide long-term care services for those individuals who have extremely limited resources to pay for it. A full discussion of this approach is beyond the scope of this article. But if you have little savings, you should explore how you might qualify for long-term care through your state and Medicaid.<\/p>\n
Long-Term Care Insurance<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you think you may need care one day, but you don\u2019t want to set aside several hundred thousand dollars for it, you should consider long-term care insurance. There are several varieties of long-term care insurance. Traditional long-term care insurance provides a daily benefit for a specified period. The benefit is indexed for inflation, so your purchasing power is preserved. An example would be a policy that provides a $200 per day benefit for up to three years, with a waiting period of 90 days before benefits can be paid.<\/p>\n
Hybrid long-term care insurance combines life insurance and long-term care insurance. The contract pays for care, if you need it. There is also a death benefit. The less care you need, the greater the death benefit. <\/p>\n
Some cash value life insurance policies include a so-called \u201cliving benefits\u201d rider that provides a portion of the death benefit if you become terminally ill. You could use these funds to pay for medical expenses, including care.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re someone who generally buys insurance to transfer risk, you should consider some form of long-term care insurance.<\/p>\n
Have a Plan<\/strong><\/h2>\nWe\u2019ve discussed many factors involved with long-term care. Now you should develop your own plan.<\/p>\n
Where will you live as you get older and less physically capable? Do you need to modify your home, so that you can \u201cage in place?\u201d <\/p>\n
If you reach a point where you can no longer perform one or more of the ADLs, what will you do? Who will provide the care? How will you pay for it?<\/p>\n
The sobering reality is that most of us will need assistance at some point in life. Plan for it. You may never need help. But, if you do, you\u2019ll be ready.<\/p>\n
Looking for Guidance?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIf you need help thinking about long-term care insurance, consider working with a Certified Financial Planner<\/strong><\/a>\u2122 (CFP\u00ae). Advisors who hold this designation have met rigorous educational, experience and ethics requirements.<\/p>\nIf you\u2019re looking for help with your retirement planning – including exploring long-term care insurance – contact us today to see how our team at Springwater Wealth can help you.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Service will get your attention. Nearly 7 out of 10 Americans will use long-term care services at some point in their lives. The average period of care is three years. Women need care for an average of 3.7 years. Men need care for an average […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,152,11],"tags":[66,69,70,83,94,99,118,140],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/springwaterwealth.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
We\u2019ve discussed many factors involved with long-term care. Now you should develop your own plan.<\/p>\n
Where will you live as you get older and less physically capable? Do you need to modify your home, so that you can \u201cage in place?\u201d <\/p>\n
If you reach a point where you can no longer perform one or more of the ADLs, what will you do? Who will provide the care? How will you pay for it?<\/p>\n
The sobering reality is that most of us will need assistance at some point in life. Plan for it. You may never need help. But, if you do, you\u2019ll be ready.<\/p>\n