The impact of medical advances on the expanding life expectancy of the baby boomer generation has staggering financial planning consequences. The notion of a person spending thirty-forty years in retirement presents a real planning challenge, especially in terms funding the cost of professional elder care. Actuaries say that more than 40% of all people over the age of 65 will enter a nursing home during their lifetime. And many will be there for years.
Elder care planning starts with your desire to maintain a dignified existence once you have lost the ability to live independently. It also considers your tolerance for reducing your spouse’s quality of living and the risk of disinheriting your children by spending down your wealth on elder care. Long term care is the term to describe a variety health, personal care and social services for persons chronically disabled or infirm. Long-term care may include services like nursing home, assisted living, home health care and adult day care.
There are no shortcuts regarding elder care planning. A reverse mortgage can be an effective income source, but it is expensive and suffers from other drawbacks as well. Long-term care insurance is quite expensive and can be difficult to obtain if you have pre-existing health issues. Generally, the profile to consider long-term care insurance protection are folks with a meaningful financial net worth in their early 50s (and still relatively healthy), who want to protect financial wealth for their spouse and heirs.
At Living Wealthy Advisors we help our clients put all the planning issues and risks of elder care into the proper perspective and to design an appropriate elder care plan to meet their personal goals and preferences.
