Hello and good afternoon. I’m going to get started in just another minute or so. I just want to make sure people have a chance to get logged in. I will be right back with you. Thank you. Well, hello and good afternoon everybody. Thank you so much for joining me for planning for long-term care. Uh one of the many webinars that I do. I do these presentations every two weeks or so. uh unless there’s a vacation or a holiday. But uh so yeah, about every two weeks I do these on many different topics. Uh today we’re going to be touching on long-term care planning. My name is Joe Gaspari. I am one of the financial consultants here at Alliant uh with the Alliant Retirement and Investment Services team. I do offer uh full financial services from stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs to whether it’s income planning, full retirement planning. That’s one of the biggest things that I do when someone says, “Here’s what I have. Here’s what I want. Am I on the right path? Am I doing the right things? Should I be saving more? Uh spending less, working longer, working shorter, all these different uh factors that might affect your retirement or whatever uh financial goal you’re you’re saving for. But uh again, one of the biggest things that I do is that retirement or financial plan. At the end of this presentation, I will be putting up a survey. I hope you will select yes on there. Uh especially if I haven’t met you already, that we could have a one-on-one conversation. Maybe it’s going to be specifically about long-term care. Maybe it’s about just future planning in general. Uh and we can work up a very comprehensive plan specifically for you. Uh but uh but today let’s just talk about some long-term care planning and learn a little bit about the strategies on what can this cost overtime and who needs long-term care, how many, you know, what percentage of people. So, we’re going to touch on a lot of things. If you do have any questions throughout the presentation, type in the Q&A box or the chat box, either one, and they will hold till the end of the presentation. That’s when I’ll be taking those questions. So if you think of a question, type away at any time. Those will save until the end. So I do want to let everyone know that we are not able to that’s one of the most common questions that we get every presentation is will there be a uh a video or anything like that available after. We are not able to record these for compliance uh purposes and we are not able to have these recorded by any listeners of these presentations. So they cannot be recorded or distributed. So uh thank you for in uh for your uh participation in that. But we cannot record these. Excuse me.
Sometimes you just got to sneeze in an unopportune time. So but again thank you for uh not recording these pres and distributing these presentations. I do have some upcoming presentations um is uh at uh for estate planning the important documents like powers of attorney uh for healthcare power of attorney for financial wills trust the difference between these what’s important for you to have many times just at least naming beneficiaries on your accounts um is certainly sufficient but uh but we can certainly uh you know learn a little bit about what does this all mean for estate planning as you’re looking to spend money in your retirement years. But what if stuff is left over? Hopefully, there’s stuff left over. Uh where does it go? How does it pass? What are the best strategies to get this to whoever your beneficiaries are, whether it’s spouse, whether it’s children, friends, relatives, anyone, charitable organizations, whoever that may be to make sure these pass seamlessly. After that, I do have on Wednesday the 29th, I have IRA planning, uh different types of IAS, whether things are pre-tax like traditional IAS or 401ks, things that are post tax like Roth IAS that grow tax-free uh for retirement. Uh taxable accounts each year like a brokerage or a savings, those things that you get 1099s on every year that you have to claim on your taxes. and what are the best ways to uh strategize on where money should be in the future to hopefully as you go through the different stages of taxes when you’re maybe working making more income than if you were not working whether that’s higher income or modest income what how do we manage your tax brackets going forward you do have access to to see what other webinars are coming up whether it’s from myself or one of my other 10 or 11 team members that do these presentations. We have people in LA, Denver, San Francisco, Houston, Utah, and here in Chicago. We are scattered around the country doing these presentations at different times, different days. We probably have anywhere from three to five presentations a week going on with at least one of us. myself. Again, I do these every two weeks, whether it’s a Tuesday or a Wednesday, maybe it’s a daytime, maybe it’s an evening. You also have access to the podcast. You can listen to our Aerys Alliant Retirement and Investment Services. That’s what Aerys stands for. We have our website and blog. You can check us out to see what who we are, what products and services we offer. I’ll be putting that up at the end of this presentation as well. So, our commitment is provide sound financial information, help you identify what’s important to you. Uh whether it’s uh you know, things like long-term care like this or just saving in general, investing, where what about the volatility in the markets at periods of time, where should you be putting things? This is all these are all the things that we would love to help you with. Uh we do offer which I will be saying again at the end of the presentation our complimentary no obligation consultation and in this consultation we can work up again here’s what you have here’s what you want are you on the right path and again that full financial plan that we do not charge for assessing the risk into getting into long-term care. uh people are turning 65 today have a nearly 70% chance of needing some type of care long-term care. Now this is very as we go through this this is very different. We are not talking about your uhiitei, you know, United Healthcare or Blue Cross Blue Shield or those types of things just for your normal health care uh whether it’s you’re on Medicare or whether you are working and have you know u some type of uh plan through work. This is very different. We are not talking about just going to the doctor periodically or maybe even a hospital visit for whatever reason. These are things of long-term that you need someone assisting in many of these different uh things that we’re going to talk about today. 20% of 65 year olds will need support uh for more than 5 years. Again, that’s one out of five, but that’s still a significant number. 8% of people ages 40 to 50 might have some type of disability or requirement for long-term care as well. What is long-term care? again, ongoing services and support needed because of a chronic health condition, disability, prolonged injury, illness, or cognitive impairment, uh, such as Alzheimer’s.
Levels of care. So, we’re going to discuss three levels. Skilled care is that round the clock you might be bedridden for whatever reason and you need health care, you need uh skilled uh skilled nursing or even potential doctors. Uh but again that you need long-term care with skilled labor. Uh intermediate care uh nursing or supportive care by professionals and or or uh custodial care which is basically maybe you need someone to help cook, clean, uh help transfer you from a bed to a chair, chair to a bed, uh bathroom, things like that. If you need any of the things listed here, that would be listed as custodial care or personal care. Where can you receive care? This comes up a lot with long-term care, uh even long-term care insurance situations of where can I get care? Uh do I have to be in a nursing home? Do I have to be in some type of assisted living? Can I get this care in my home? And many times the answer is yes. that you will still be able to have some type of an insurance and get someone maybe someone coming to you that you can be in the comfort of your own home and still get care. Uh adult daycare is certainly one of those other options where maybe you’re dropped off if you have family members that are working still and maybe that you’re dropped off during the day, picked up in the early evening uh just for an adult daycare. Common misconceptions. I’ll never need long-term care. It won’t be that expensive, which it is. Uh Medicare and Medicaid will cover the costs. Uh Medicare will cover for a very short period of time. Uh statistically, and Medicaid will, but we’ll talk about what the restrictions for Medicaid. Uh my family will take care of me. Some many times people will say, “Oh, I got adult children. They will they will take care of me.” Uh many times easier said than done. Maybe that is the case for some families, but I just can’t count on that for every family that someone can stop working to care for someone needing long-term care. Caregiving challenges. 41 million people provide unpaid care for a family member. 61% of caregivers are women and one-third 34% are a are in either in retirement or of retirement age 65 or over. Unpaid care uh caregivers spend an average almost a full-time job well close to 35 hours a week caring for someone in addition to their own jobs. Uh four in 10 caregivers consider their caregiving situation to be highly stressful. I am working with several people right now that could be maybe in uh with, you know, obtaining some type of long-term care insurance or that are caring for family members right now. And this is kind of hot and heavy. Uh very hard, you know, on on on their hearts right now of I should start be thinking for my own future as well. Um that being a caregiver for someone else and now I’m thinking is there someone going to be there for me? If not, how do we pay for this? Why is it important to have long-term care strategy? So, protecting your assets, uh it could be an asset depletter that if you let’s say you did need skilled nursing care uh for a period of time for a year or two or three or even up to 5 years, are there enough assets? Because that type of care can be very expensive. And how much assets are you willing to earmark for that? Or do you have enough assets to uh you know to even be paying other bills in addition to your own personal care? Uh maintain independence. uh preserve freedom to choose where your care is provided when you have that uh some type of coverage or that uh that peace of mind knowing that whatever it this is going to throw at you. Uh could you be in the comfort of your own home uh or wherever you uh would prefer to be not where you have to be? Avoid becoming a burden on someone else. Today’s focus we’re going to touch on these three things. The first one, potential costs of care in different settings. So, here’s one we’re going to look at. National median costs. These last numbers were updated in 2021, uh, updated every few years. So, hopefully we’ll get some updated numbers here soon, but still in 2021, just homemaker services. This might be, you could see at the very bottom, uh, it’s got the star there based on 44 hours per week. homemaker services. You need someone to help cook and clean and do things around the house for you. Again, maybe getting you out of a chair into a bed, a bed into a chair, something like that. Uh, but that is close to 5,000 a month or close to 60,000 a year just for that. Um, and that could be someone that is I’ll use the term unskilled labor for this and which could just be a family, a friend, a family member or a friend or someone that’s just assisting around the house. Home health aid, a little over 5,000 a month. Adult daycare, about this is the least expensive of these because it’s the least amount of time. And again, you’re dropping someone off at a a adult daycare and picking up typically in the evening. Uh private room and in assisted living, 4,500 per month. Now, we’re talking a little bit more expensive with the semi-private. in a nursing home almost 8,000 a month and over 9,000 a month if you need a private room in a nursing home. A little over 800,000 a year for something like that. So, someone says, “Hey, I have a $500,000 that I can earmark and I’ll just selffund my uh long-term care.” That is $500,000 that could go out if that was in a f for a five-year term of someone in some type of facility that either do you have enough assets to pay for that or that is 500,000 less that is going to your heirs uh because all the assets are being used up. annual cost of a nursing home care. Uh the national medium cost for a private room in a nursing home, 94,900 again in 2021. If we’re going to do this at a 4% annual increases uh over 20-year period of time, that’s over double 211,000 uh a year uh for uh for this type of care and a private room in a nursing home. So, we can just see escalating over time. Uh, typically health care costs and even long-term care costs are exceed inflation. Even if inflation were, let’s say, at a 3% average uh rate, we’re looking at much higher for health care. I’m going to just again throw a reminder. If you do have any questions, uh, go ahead. I know there’s some already, but type away in the Q&A box or the chat box and we’ll get to those questions at the end of the presentation. Uh costs vary depending where you live. This is pretty astounding when I look at Texas versus uh it’s the highest California on just the different costs just depending what state you live in. Uh so we’re seeing Texas is the lowest and again this is a private room in an assisted living. uh you know we’re so average cost uh for that 48,000 almost up to 63,000 when we look at for a semi-private room in a nursing home now now we’re talking New York 153,000 versus uh Texas at about 61,000 so will someone need to move to a different state to get the care that they need because it’s just not affordable in some other states
look to what uh for for um at a nursing home or other senior living facility. People ask uh ask people you trust and do you know anyone in this type of situation where where are they staying? Are they getting home care? Are they in a good facility? There are some sources medicare.gov gov through there where you can get some uh some resources on what trustworthy places that you can look at uh comparing different facilities and talk to the residents, talk to people that are going there if you’re allowed to. I know there’s privacy things that uh they don’t want people just walking into a facility and just start asking uh people questions, but uh um but again, you know, questions asked, you only get the answers if you ask the questions. So uh certainly you know reach out to some people to see where you know where what are the best places in certain areas. Uh focus number two is meth methods to pay for long-term care. Uh so lack of confidence and ability. So when we look at people working on the left side of this page versus retirees on the right side. Uh when we look at very confident to somewhat confident, if we add those up, we’re looking at about uh let’s say about 54% are somewhat confident plus uh that they’re going to have enough assets to fund their own long-term care. Uh but again, that’s a little under 50%, little under half are not feeling very confident on that. Uh same thing with retirees. The numbers are very similar. So people working and then retired. Uh, how many people are are are you comfortable with what assets you have? Can you be self-funded? And are you willing to use your own assets for this type of thing? Then looking at how expensive this potentially could be. How will you pay for the potential cost? Pay out of pocket. That’s number one. So, someone again might be self-funding their long-term care just from savings, investment accounts, retirement accounts, wherever those funds come from, but things that you’ve saved over time. You can rely on government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid. Um, again, Medicare is very short-term. We’re going to talk on about that in a couple of slides here on what does Medicare cover. Medicare is not long-term care. Medicare is a there’s a very short-term care, but it is not long-term care. Medicaid, we’ll talk about the restrictions of Medicaid because you cannot have assets if you go onto Medicaid. Uh purchasing long-term care insurance, we’re going to touch on as well. Add a long-term care rider to a life insurance or annuity. Uh that’s one of the most popular things that we do right now is more of a hybrid uh you know policy which is an annuity with long-term care rider or life insurance/l long-term care where whether you’re in a care situation and you can use some of that policy to pay for your care or if you what if you never even needed that care it’ll pay an enhanced death benefit. So someone is getting something out of those. uh this presentation doesn’t get too much into the individual policies. That’s what our conversation will be about. But I can tell you the the old school tw over 20 years ago when I when I would talk to long-term care, I was with a different firm back in the early 2000s and talking about long-term care. um long-term care policies at the time like GE or Genworth at the time was a very big player uh doing long-term care policies. John Hancock was the other really big one. And those were are the ones that you make a monthly premium or annual premium. And you’re paying, you’re paying, you’re paying. And I can tell you many times because the world has changed since the early 2000s. We’ve gone through many crisis times. We’ve gone through higher interest rates. We’ve gone through very low interest rates. And we’ve seen those types of policies where the premium goes up and the benefits go down or the benefits go down or a combination of both of those where I’m paying more for less benefits over to then what you signed up for 20 plus years ago. Uh those policies are still there, but they’re not very popular because they are still very expensive uh when you just pay that monthly premium. The hybrid policies are much more common now. uh and much more reasonable for because if you never go if you never go into a long-term care situation that these policies that you’ve been paying for 20 plus years, many of them many of them do not have a death benefit. Uh which means that if you never went into a long-term care situation of a policy that you’ve been paying 20 25 year years in and you passed away, it’s gone. It’s done. It’s over. No, nothing goes to anybody. So all the premiums you paid are just gone. So now as people want to make sure that if I’m paying for something, I need this to go to someone, whether it’s me for the long-term care purpose or if I pass away, maybe using none or some of the uh the long-term care uh claim, if not any of it, death benefit will go to someone taxfree. And by the way, it uh also with your if you are if you have a long-term care policy and you put money into this, whether it’s a lump sum or making premium payments and you go into a claim, which means you can’t do two of the six daily living activities, feed yourself, dress yourself, bathe yourself, and you’re getting payments now from this long-term care policy. Those are tax-free as well. Those are tax-free withdrawals. As long as it’s used for long-term care, you do not have to pay tax. So, if you’re putting a chunk in and you’re getting a big much bigger benefit now coming out, it’s taxfree. Same thing with the death benefit. Paying out of pocket or self-funding, you do have freedom. Uh you can choose your who where you are. If you’re paying for it, you can have someone come to you if you need to go to a facility. may be ideal if you can afford to pay for it, but you must be willing to liquidate your assets, may impact the ability to pass um assets to family or beneficiaries. If you run out of money, relying on family members or the government may be your only options using a reverse mortgage. This is kind of a controversial thing that you know it’s when people say, “Oh, it’s well worth it to do a reverse mortgage or never do a reverse mortgage.” some people might say, but basically it’s if you have a lot of equity in your home or maybe even no mortgage, you can do a reverse mortgage where instead of you making payments to pay back a loan, you get payments from that. So, you’re not you’re not paying anything upfront. Uh you’re well, besides fees and costs, but you’re getting money from this company who’s doing a lean on your home. This does need to be paid back, but it’s basically how do you get income from an asset like your home, and you’re able to do that through a reverse mortgage. You can borrow against your equity. You can uh use the proceeds to hire caregivers. There’s no mortgage payments. Again, loan must be repaid when you vacate your home. Whether you move, sell, if you pass away, the loan has to be paid back. Your beneficiaries or your heirs will need to pay this back. A reverse mortgage takes part of the equity in your home and converts it into payments made to you. You can use the payments you receive to pay for long-term care services you need so you can continue living in your home. Drawbacks uh may not be suitable if you remain in the home just for a short period of time. You’re not getting enough benefit out of it. Uh then uh loan must be repaid when you move out, sell or die. amount can be borrowed. It’s typically much less than than the actual value. If you have a $300,000 home, let’s say it’s even paid off, you will not get 300,000 worth of, you know, payments out of here. They will might do two or two maybe up to 250. They will do a percentage of that. They you cannot get the full value. Uh amount can be borrowed as uh involves substantial fees. there are a lot of fees and costs associated with doing a uh a reverse mortgage. Uh the the company doing this reverse mortgage uh they are looking they’re trying to make a profit and they’re not just you know being nice. Uh they’re absolutely a business making a profit. Uh interest is added to your balance and adds up over time. So, it’s kind of a big question mark and it might be a last resort for some people relying on government programs. Uh Medicare will cover your health care expenses in retirement. Uh again, Medicare for uh for your traditional doctor visits or maybe hospital visits. Medicare will, but Medicare will not cover your long-term care. And Medicare Medicaid will cover care in a nursing home potentially. We’ll talk about some amounts and what the availability is on for Medicaid. Uh Medicare is your your health insurance for 65 and over. Uh different parts you have Medicare part A which is your hospital coverage. So your hospital visits are through Medicare A. You do not have to pay for Medicare A if you are not on uh Medicare yet. Uh part B is your doctor visits, your doctor insurance, medical insurance, and that’s what you have to pay for. It’s 22 uh.90. $22.90 uh a month is what you are paying for Medicare Part B. If you opt for the Advantage plan, Medicare Part C, that’s uh you have to go through private insurance. you have to go through either Blue Cross, Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Etna, those types of comp uh companies to get a uh Medicare Part C. I would kind of say it’s similar to more of like an HMO plan uh where it could be a little bit less cost than A and B and but uh um it’s less there’s more restrictions on doctors and they have to be within the network and things like that. Medicare Part D is your prescription drug coverage. Medicare does not pay for personal care or custodial care. Home health uh benefits are limited. Uh Medicare for skilled nursing facility, we can see your first 20 days. This is the short-term care. Um and this is for skilled nursing. Uh this is not just for uh someone to come help cook and clean. This is for skilled nursing that Medicare will pay 100% for the first 20 days. They will pay partial for days 21 through 100. So those remaining 80 days. Um and you are on the hook for $200 a day. $200 a day times 80 days is $16,000 out of pocket. Um, and because and now if your care is much more than that, but they will pay partial partial and you are on the hook for $200 a day. Over a 100 days, Medicare does not pay anything. It’s all on you. That’s where whether it’s out of your assets or some type of insurance that you might have. Medicaid. Um, so this is a federal/state program. It could vary in every state on how much uh um you know benefits that you have through Medicaid. Um it’s meansbased uh which means if you have no assets, there is a restriction on how much assets you could have. I believe it’s on the next page here. uh but uh Medicaid is the biggest payer right now of uh long-term care, but you cannot have you can have very limited assets if you have a spousal situation. We’ll talk about that a little bit on the next slide. Uh each state establishes establishes its own eligibility rules. A few state Medicaid programs may uh programs may allow applicants to self-direct their own care. uh there’s some website sources uh for something like that. But again, Medicaid is if you don’t have assets, if you cannot afford to pay, that’s what Medicaid is all about. You will still get some type of care, but where, when, how, that’s up to uh facilities on what spaces they have available for Medicaid uh recipients. eligibility. In most states, an individual’s income must be less than the cost of care. Uh like social security typically or maybe there’s a pension. Uh the income gap uh applies in some states. Assets 2,000. You can have $2,000 in uh assets basically excluding some of these things on the bottom. Um but if you are married your healthy spouse can have assets but in your own name uh you cannot have assets. Um as you know when people ask questions about Medicaid many times this is uh you need to have a conversation with an elder attorney or some type of estate planning attorney on how to get qualified for uh Medicaid uh and legally start to give away assets or spend down your assets. But uh things that are not counted in that your home if your spouse is still living. If you are a single person, you cannot own the home. Only if your spouse is still living. You can have one car. Uh household and personal belongings. Term life insurance is acceptable to own. Medicaid compliant annuity if it’s something that you you’re getting guaranteed lifetime income from. Uh burial plots and funeral expenses. Uh strategies may include using assets that count, savings to purchase assets that don’t count, maybe using some uh savings to buy an insurance policy, a term insurance policy, transferring assets in an irrevocable trust. There is a big difference between a revocable trust, which is the standard trust that most people might have. Uh if it’s a family trust or a living trust, those are termed as a revocable trust. An irrevocable trust, you do not control your own assets. Someone else has to be the trustee of those assets. So, they are technically outside of your estate. Uh, and start to give away assets, start to gift to, um, family, friends, or whoever start to give, you know, uh, give money away. Distributing or protecting your assets in advance may help you qualify for Medicaid. So benefits are qualify for Medicaid as soon as possible, protect a healthy spouse, preserve assets for loved ones. The drawbacks ethically problematic for some. Some some people are saying that they don’t feel like they should uh need to somehow like hide their assets in some ways. For some people uh may require to give up the rights of your assets and Medicaid laws are pretty complex and again they vary per state. Another reminder that if you do have some questions, please type away in the chat box or the Q&A uh box and I will get to those at the end of the presentation.
Medicaid planning example. So, here’s an example of giving away assets. So, you transfer ownership of your house to your son. Uh the value of this home is 400,000. The average cost of a nursing home in in your area is 8,000 a month. So 400,000 value of the asset divided by 8,000 a month for this care. Uh Medicaid is saying you are not eligible for Medicaid for 50 months. 50 that maybe you should have sold the house and use those assets for care. Uh this so there are different ways or something like that. if you spoke to an attorney, how do I start to give away assets and qualify for Medicaid as soon as possible? I am uh working with a um very good client of mine actually uh out in New York and her sh her her husband is on Medicaid and now she has restructuring some of her assets working with an attorney so she can herself go on Medicaid and we’re going through some steps on all this and it’s been probably a little over a year that she’s been planning this for herself now. Um so in this case the ineligible uh ineligibility for Medicaid is a little over 4 years. So benefits of long-term care insurance. So different types of policies for long-term care. What are most people doing these days? So in exchange for a premium or a lumpsum that you might deposit into some policy. Uh there’s a contractual daily or monthly benefit that you will receive if you are in a claim for a long-term care. Especially valuable uh for middle inome Americans who want to preserve their financial independence and quality of life. Preserves freedom to choose where and when you receive this care. Uh helps protect accumulated assets. avoids the need to spend down your assets, especially if you already have um different types of policies. One of the things when I talk to people about planning, do you have other insurance policies, whether it’s life insurance or do you already have a long-term care policy? Is this still the best policy? Insurance reviews are a big part of this process as well. And are you in the right type of policy for whatever you’re trying to protect? Maybe you have family members, maybe a higher death benefit is most important to you. Maybe you don’t have uh maybe you’re unmarried or don’t have children and maybe the death benefit is not the mo most important thing. Can things be reallocated to put you in an appropriate policy? Uh so preserves the freedom to choose where you receive the care, helps protect the accumulated assets, and avoids the need to spend down your assets by having some type of insurance policy. How does long-term care insurance work? You must be in reasonably good health to get it. So when people say, “When do I get long-term care?” Basically, when you don’t need it. Um so if you are in a health situation right now whether it’s heart or lung or cognitive uh uh disabilities or something like that or some cancers or things that uh make make you not qualify, you need to get this insurance while you qualify. Uh so sooner than later to at least start investigating this. Maybe it’s something that you can afford to do. Maybe you feel you can’t afford to get some type of policy, but let’s certainly have the conversation to see if this is something that you should be planning for. Premium is based on again these are if you’re making monthly or annual premiums are based on your age and the features and benefits you choose. The younger you are, the more benefits you will get in this type of a policy. benefit is typically triggered when you become chronically ill or cognitively impaired or can’t do two of the six daily living. Feed yourself, dress yourself, bathe yourself, those types of things that if you are not able to do those, then you could be in a claim for your long-term sharing care insurance and get payments from that policy. Once the elimination period or the waiting period, typically it could be a 30-day, a 60-day, or even a 90day elimination period, which means if you are in a claim, doctor says you can’t do two or more of the six daily living things. If you are in a claim, the insurance company says, “All right, you were approved that you can start to get payments, but you have to wait this 30 days or 60 or 90 days.” So, you’ll always want to know, is there an elimination period for this? Five key features in long-term care insurance. The benefit, so the benefit is the amount that you will receive every month uh or annually to help pay for care if you are in claim. The benefit period is how long is that going to last? Is it 1 year? Is it 2 years, 3 years, 5 years? or even typically a lot of times it’s 6 years that you get this coverage for the elimination period is the waiting period to start getting the benefit 30 60 or 90 days. Uh location of care. Does this policy that you have allow you to get home care? Can you be in the comfort of your own home and have someone come to you? Maybe it’s family or friends that you’re able to pay. And maybe it’s uh someone like a company like Visiting Angels or something that will send someone to you. Uh professional um companies like that that will also uh do home care or do you need to be in a nursing home? Inflation protected? Is there increases? So, for example, if you’re buying a policy today and you’re young enough and healthy enough and you get this and let’s say your benefit is 4,000 a month, uh if you’re young enough, let’s say in 20 years, is 4,000 a month going to make a dent into that, how much is uh is care going to be in 20 years from now? So, are there some type of cost of living increases on this benefit? managing the cost of long-term care insurance. Uh the younger you are when you buy long-term care policy, the less expensive the premium. Make sure you can afford this uh premium now and in the future. Buy from a reputable company. There are many companies that we are able to use for this type of insurance. And of course, every company that we are able to even talk about are highly rated uh insurance companies. Make sure you can afford the premium now and in the future. Buy from a reputable company. Choose features and benefits wisely. Take advantage of tax incentives. So, typically if you’re making monthly premiums or annual premiums into these, many times it’s there’s some type of tax deduction. I do not have details of what is the specific situation. How much can I deduct? Talk to your qualified tax advisor if it comes to something like that. But there is a chart here based on your age on uh they it is age-based that uh on how much you can uh deduct and there are potentially some state deductions as well. Again, talk to your qualified tax advisor about how this can affect your taxes. Partnership policies that help you qualify for Medicaid. Uh key features to consider. What’s the benefit amount? The benefit period. Uh again, the amount, how much do you get every month? Uh as a benefit, how long do you have to uh how long does that last? 1 year, 2 years, up to 6 years. Benefit triggers, the two of the six daily. Many times that is the factor. If you can’t do two of those six daily living things, many times you’re in claim, and many times that’s a doctor note or something from your medical uh provider. Uh elimination period, how long do you have to wait to start getting the benefits? uh types of facilities included. Could it be home care? Could it be an assisted living? Does it need to be a nursing home? What type of uh location is this? Inflation protected. Will these premium uh the benefits increase over time? And the waiver premium. If you are making monthly premium payments into this policy and you’re in claim, many times that you don’t have to make those premium payments anymore. As long as you are in claim, you do not have to make payments. Sometimes that’s not the case. Sometimes there are you do have to continue making your payments but many times it is a waiver of premium and guaranteed renewable. Other insurance options there’s hybrid life insurance. So a combination that I said earlier a combination of life insurance and long-term care or a deferred annuity with a long-term care rider. And we’ll touch on both of these. So, a hybrid life insurance uh linked benefit long-term care rider uh chronic illness or critical illness acceleration rider. Here’s what all this uh means. There’s positives and negatives uh of of course, but uh if you are looking to get an insurance to cover two different events, a death benefit and a long-term care benefit, if you had one policy for a death benefit alone, and you had one policy for a long-term care benefit, that death benefit would be higher on that single policy and the long-term care benefit would be higher on that single policy. But if you have a hybrid, you’ll be covered on both, but it could be a little bit lower for uh for the benefits of both of those. But you are getting two uh cover coverages in there. And that something is going to someone. If you need it for long-term care, it’s available to you. If you never needed it for long-term care and you passed away, that benefit is going to someone for a tax-free lump sum death benefit. So the positives, the premium is guaranteed and won’t increase over time. Flexible premium uh payment options. Many times we do a lot of lumpsum things. Uh that they’re very common these days, especially if someone can afford if someone cannot afford that. Uh there are some monthly options, but again, typically I’m going to be looking at more hybrid options uh than your standard long-term care uh because they’re just more affordable and it make have a lot more benefits attached to those. Um maybe easier to qualify um for coverage than a traditional long-term care policy. Might allow for you uh for you to pay family members who cares for you. There’s a big difference on many different policies where it might be indemnity payments or reimbursement payments. Here’s the difference on that. Uh some policies offer indemnity payments. So let’s say hypothetically you’re getting 5,000 a month benefit that’s coming to you if you’re in claim. An indemnity payment means that you get 5,000 a month direct deposit tax-free if it’s for long-term care and you use it as you choose. If you want to have a family, friend, or someone, whoever, just to come to the home and help care for you, you can pay for them out of this 5,000 uh or if you for whatever purpose, maybe you need to get a wheelchair accessible vehicle and you’re going to make a monthly payment. Yeah, you can use this uh premium for something like that as well. You can use it for whatever you need. If it is a reimbursement payment, that means you pay let’s say the 5,000 a month that you’re that you need to pay for some care and you get reimbursed. You have to submit receipts and that means it cannot be family or friends. It has to be a reputable company uh that uh that does this and like you’re visiting angels or something like that or whether you’re in a nursing home but you are getting build you’re paying it you submit that receipt and you get reimbursed. So there’s a big difference whether it’s indemnity payments or reimbursement payments deferred long-term care annuity. So, there are uh you can kind of look down this list here, but basically what a long-term care annuity is. It’s a fixed annuity which earns a gu uh an interest rate uh for a period of time for as long as you own it. It’s just earning interest uh tax deferred interest and it’s growing growing growing over time and you have a long-term care writer. An example of one of the policies that I’m able to offer in this type of an annuity is it’s a lump sum deposit. In this specific case, let’s say a h 100,000 goes into this policy. It is immediately available if you qualify for 300,000 of long-term care coverage. So day one, you put a 100 in and it’s worth 300,000 of long-term care insurance. And year two, year three, let’s say it’s just growing over time. Let’s say some years down the road, let’s say your 100,000 has earned interest. Let’s say it’s worth 125,000 um in value. So, it’s because it’s been earning interest. Now, your long-term care benefit is still three times that, which would be 375,000 of long-term care coverage. And then that payment back to you is divided by 72 months, which is 6 years of coverage. And that would be how much you could receive in a monthly benefit from this policy. So you put money in, it earns an interest rate. Now, how how does this pay out? What if you don’t need it? So it pays out this uh I’ll even do a very quick calculation. Just if I said 375,000 divided by 72 payments is $5,28 a month. That’s what you would get from the insurance company. If you use that for six years, that’s what the coverage is for in this specific example. Um, you would have gotten 375,000 for long-term care coverage out of that for 6 years. What if you never needed that policy and you passed away? Uh, that let’s say that example of the balance was 125,000. If you passed away, someone’s getting the 125,000, whoever you name as the beneficiaries. So, um, but there is certainly money going to someone. Uh, but that’s basically what a, um, an annuity with a long-term care rider. I do those as well. Um, and I do the hybrid life insurance/long-TM care, many of those as well. Uh, tax-free HSA distributions. You’re able to use um, HSA health savings accounts for potential long-term care needs. uh withdrawals for long-term care. So, if you are if you have this money, if you have an HSA account available, maybe you have a high deductible health care plan, typically that’s why you would have an an health savings account is with a high deductible savings or a high deductible uh uh health care plan like we do here at Alliant. That’s what our company offers. It’s a high deductible, so I’m able to contribute to an HSA account. And if there are funds in my retirement down the road and I want to use those uh for some long-term care, uh I can certainly do that. And those are tax-free withdrawals. Begin planning today, whether you’re healthy uh while you’re healthy enough to take advantage of all the options. And again, if you and I do get together and have a discussion, we could certainly talk about your future plan. Maybe it’s for retirement, but what if uh what if you passed away? What’s the death benefit of all of your assets? And who are those going to? Is it going to be a spouse? Is it other children, family, friends, whoever those are? I want to make sure that whether you are here, you have enough assets to live on in retirement. If you’re not here, where does all that go? And how does it go? What are the best tax advantages for all of these things for beneficiaries? and what if you have health care needs like long-term care or not. And we’ll look at all of these different scenarios for this comp complimentary plan that I will offer you uh while you have enough time to plan for Medicaid and accumulate funds in your health savings account and to relieve your family of the burden of making these decisions. So, long-term care planning checklist, you can see here uh just again everything that we talked about here. I would love to have this one-on-one conversation. uh work with us, use us, we are a free source to you on doing financial planning. uh it is not an obligation uh as we get t you know if we do talk about what do we do that’s what this page has on here I am a full financial services uh advisor here with the credit union whether it’s looking at how do I invest where should I be should I be more aggressive should I be more conservative um and there’s many different types of uh investment options that we can select from uh every anything that is available I can offer full financial services, including all of this planning for whatever your life may uh throw at you. Uh I do life insurance, I do long-term care insurance, I do all of the protection things like that. Um and it’s all available to you. So hopefully you will say yes at the end of this presentation and have a one-on-one conversation. With that, I’m going to take some questions. I know I have a um a good number of them here right now. I’ll try to get hopefully to all of these uh before our time is up. But uh as I’m going through the questions, you have you can see on the screen there the QR code. If you have your phone handy and you want to hold that up to your camera up to that, just tap on the little yellow tab that comes up there and you will have access to my calendar and you can schedule a time and you can even do that right now if you so choose. I will be putting up the survey otherwise and just basically saying would you like to set up an appointment and with that uh um you know so if you say yes on there well of course I’ll reach out to you and we’ll get something on the calendar. Uh so I’m going to launch the poll here.
So hopefully you see that up on your screen right now. So select yes if you would like to have that conversation. Um and then uh while you’re doing that I will go through the questions that I have. Do the costs you are um presenting include meals? So, uh, possibly some, uh, have like it’s all-incclusive, which means your room and all the meals are, um, I can’t say that every service will include meals, but many of them, especially if you are in like a nursing home and you’re paying an 8 or 9,000 a month for some of these, yes, that would include the meals. I can’t say that for every facility, but many times, yes. Uh, who had the information to review insurance options? Um, not sure. I have your name on here. What what you’re asking here. Who had the information to review insurance options? I’m not sure what what that means. So, I have your information. I would I can certainly get some more clarification on that from you. Uh, please repeat the link for nursing home comparison. Uh if you don’t mind any everybody, I’m going to might make you a little dizzy here, but I’m going to go back to the screen uh with the the link. Let’s see if I can get to it. Sorry for the busy screen here.
soon as I get back to the Medicaid.
If you have your camera ready while I’m about to bring this up, you can take a screen a picture of the screen as soon as I get to it. And hopefully it’ll be here within the next page or two here. If it doesn’t pop up here, this might this is might be the one that you’re looking for. Uh so if you have your camera ready or I’ll just leave this up while I’m going through some questions here. So that is for the uh for comparisons.
Uh let’s see. At what age should one obtain long-term care insurance? Uh some will argue that if you’re in your you know even early 50s because it’s very inexpensive. It’s much less expensive the earlier you do it. Someone might say, “Well, I haven’t accumulated enough assets yet to do something like this.” And maybe, you know, the average is probably in the early 60s, sometimes a little higher. I could say that if you are 70 or older, you can still get this many times up to age 75, but insurance companies will start to dig a little deeper. uh if you are 70 or over they will do a cognitive call many times where someone will call you and do and check you out a little bit. They’ll ask you a bunch of questions like for example they will say um they will give you a list of 10 items and can you repeat the 10 items? Not necessarily that you have to remember all 10 of them. It’s did they even did you understand the questions that they were asking? So some they will do a cognitive call. So it is a little harder to get approved on some of these especially um if there’s a beginning of any any cognitive uh um areas there. But uh uh but you know as far as what ages typically in the early 60s might be the most common. Uh I’ve done many in the 50s as well and especially with people with assets. Um, the most common type of long-term care policies that we do, even though we do some with some type of monthly or annual payments, uh, we do a lot of lumpsum options, which means people might have enough assets to say, “All right, I have enough assets. I think I might be able to self-fund, but what if I earmarked a h 100,000 toward this long-term care policy? Still doing something, still working for you. Uh, but it might be earmarked for an enhanced benefit for long-term care or a life insurance. Uh, so we do a lot of those types of policies. Uh, what are the reasonings for having an elimination period? It could be because maybe you just had a short-term uh, issue. Maybe it was uh for example, sometimes people will go into a claim on a let’s say a hip replacement where they need some care. So let’s say that let you know if you did a hip replacement but it was let’s say magically better within a 60-day elimination period. 2 months later you’re okay. It will not pay out. Um, but if you had an issue where maybe it’s 6 months to a year or longer that you’re you need care, you can go on claim. You have to wait that 30 or 60 days, that elimination period, and then you get payments and if you suddenly are better, maybe that HIP is now improved or you’re able to do things on your own, you go off of claim and then funds are available to potentially go back on claim. So, you can go on claim getting money from the policy, go off claim because you’re better, and then potentially go back on claim if that happens. But the elimination period is to avoid any shortterm things that might have happened uh that the insurance company will have that period of time where okay, we know you’re in claim, but just in case you’re better in the next month or two. Typically, if it’s a long-term care situation, you’re probably not going to get better, but that’s the purpose of the elimination period. Uh, can I buy while living in one state? But what happens if I move? Yes, you can. Uh same thing with you know life insurance things are state um you know uh you know stateaterun especially when um uh you know if so someone buys life insurance I’m in Illinois if I’m doing a policy for someone that lives in Illinois I go by Illinois rules of buying a life insurance policy for someone um but if you move to another state absolutely it would still pay out a death benefit would still pay out for long-term care. Yes, you can move.
Oh, sorry that uh changed the screen there. Uh can I buy uh what happens if you move? Uh can you update uh the stats uh in your desk? For example, the 2026 uh HSA contributions have. Okay. All right. So, uh, yeah, I’ll have to look at the HSA contributions on there and see if we could have our our admin person change, uh, some of those numbers. So, I apologize on that. Uh, what’s on the screen is Medicaid, not the nursing home evaluation link. Uh, we’ll see if I could find that. I think I just have I’ll still try to do that. Let me see. I had a long question here. Uh when you say qualify for Medicaid as soon as possible, what do you mean by that? My grandfather is 80 years old and he wants to pass uh in his home pass in his home with care uh to in his home does uh he does does own his own home and from what you described he will have to give away the assets in order to qualify for Medicaid. uh since the spouse is disease his main asset is the home fully paid. I am his caretaker and he is still uh able to do a lot on his on this the right is this the right time to start planning for Medicaid. So there could be the reason I say as soon as possible is there could be a five-year look back for Medicaid. Uh so if you’re applying if all of a sudden uh someone applies and says I have no money, I have nothing. Um but uh you just gave everything away a month ago or 2 months ago. Um maybe that was legally maybe some people will do some things to hide assets. Uh so everything does have to be done correctly and but there could be a 5-year look back on these. as an example, if he assigned the home over to someone else. Remember when it said that 400,000 home because if care is average of 8,000 a month, that was 50 months that you would not qualify for Medicaid. So, that’s one of those you need to start planning that. And I would highly recommend an elder attorney or an estate attorney to figure out um how and when and where to uh where assets can be. Um I will have to get back to I’m going to make a lot of people dizzy as soon as I uh if I can get the nursing home evaluation link. I’m still looking for that one. Um but if not I can please reach out to me if I don’t have your information and I will get that information for you. Um other than that I think that is all. Uh can you go over the HSA process again? Uh so I cannot share the slides. Someone just asked if I can share slides. I am not able to. Um I’m looking for the nursing home comparison. I will try to find that. I have your information here. I will get back to you with the I can do a screenshot of a link and I can get that to you so you’re not waiting for me to find that page. Uh the HSA process is if you have a health savings account and you have funds in this that maybe it’s even invested or just earning an interest rate, you’re able to accumulate assets in an HSA account. And basically, for example, myself, I have an HSA account that I put this money in pre-tax. So, it comes out of my paycheck. And our company actually provides some of that, too. So, it’s all pre-tax going in as long as money is used for health care and long-term care is acceptable for this that you’re able to use assets from your HSA account and uh um and put money and use it for long-term care. Let’s see if there was anything else. Uh what’s on? It’s the Medicaid, not the nursing home. So again, I will get to you that information. Uh okay. So we’re just past 3 o’clock. I appreciate your time so much. Thank you. And I hope that we’re going to be having a one-on-one conversation soon. We’ll talk to you all soon. Have a great rest of the day.