Long-Term Care Planning · Lincoln, NE
The risk most retirement plans never account for.
Extended care is one of the biggest costs a retirement can face, and one of the hardest topics for families to bring up. It's worth planning for while you still have choices.
Why it matters
Someone is going to provide the care. The plan decides who.
When there's no plan, the care still happens — it just gets paid for out of the retirement accounts, out of the house, or out of a daughter's career. Those are all real options. They should be chosen on purpose rather than by default.
For some families, self-funding genuinely is the right answer, and we'll say so. For others, moving a portion of the risk to an insurance company protects the spouse who isn't sick — which is often what people are really trying to do.
What we work through
- What care actually costs in Nebraska, by type of care
- Whether self-funding is realistic for your situation
- Traditional long-term care insurance
- Hybrid life insurance policies with care benefits
- What Medicare does and does not cover
- The effect on the healthy spouse's retirement
- Who in the family would be asked to step in
Ways to approach it
There is no single right answer, and there are more than two choices.
Self-funding
Setting aside a portion of assets specifically for care. Straightforward, but it means the full risk stays with your household.
Long-term care insurance
Traditional coverage that pays a daily or monthly benefit when care is needed, subject to policy terms, waiting periods and underwriting.
Hybrid policies
Life insurance or annuity contracts with care benefits, so the money is used either for care or for the family if care is never needed.
Questions to sit with
Worth answering before you need to.
- ?If I needed care tomorrow, where would the money come from?
- ?Would my spouse still be financially secure afterward?
- ?Do I want to be cared for at home if that's possible?
- ?Which of my children would end up carrying this?
- ?Am I healthy enough to qualify for coverage right now?
Long-term care and hybrid policies are subject to underwriting, elimination periods, benefit limits and exclusions. Benefits and guarantees depend on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Medicare's coverage of long-term custodial care is very limited.
It's an easier conversation while you're healthy.
Qualifying for coverage depends on health, and health is the one thing that doesn't wait for a convenient time.