Managing Without Long-Term Care Insurance
No estate plan is complete without documents that will enable you to access the care you want in the event that you suffer long-term health. We never know when our health will take a turn for the worse, and healthcare costs, from hospitalizations to home health aide services to prescription drugs to nursing homes, are enough to wreck anyone’s finances. The most important parts don’t cost much; you are never too rich or too poor to draft a medical advance directive detailing which medical interventions you consent to in the event of a severe illness and designating a person to voice your consent or lack thereof when you are too ill to do so. With most other matters, beggars can’t be choosers. A lot of nursing home residents are there as Medicaid beneficiaries either because they never had enough money to afford a more comfortable alternative or because they failed to make a plan to avoid this fate. If the thought of living out your days in a nursing home, with no cash flow except the Medicaid personal needs allowance, scares you, you should buy long-term care insurance. If the opportunity to buy long-term care insurance has passed, contact a Washington, D.C. estate planning lawyer.
Are You So Rich That You Do Not Need Long-Term Care Insurance?
Most people’s motivation for buying long-term care insurance is that they don’t want to risk losing possession of their houses if they must spend an extended time in a nursing home or assisted living facility. Some people sell their houses to pay for assisted living; only the wealthiest ones, the people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings accounts, can afford to pay for assisted living without selling their houses. The most affordable workaround is to buy long-term care insurance. The cost of spending a month in an assisted living facility is about the same as the annual premium for a long-term care insurance policy, so the policy pays for itself quickly once you start using the benefits.
Insurers know that you are getting a good deal if you use the benefits, so they will not sell you a policy unless you are young and healthy when you first buy it. They want you to pay them for many years before they start paying you.
The Good Enough Insurance Policy
If you have missed the boat on buying long-term care insurance, it is still better to buy an insurance policy that can offset your long-term care costs than it is to leave things to chance. The next best thing to long-term care insurance is whole life insurance or hybrid life insurance. They pay some money toward long-term care costs, albeit not as much as a conventional long-term care insurance policy would, and they have other insurance benefits, too.
Contact Tobin O’Connor Concino P.C. About Long-Term Care Strategy
A Washington, D.C. estate planning attorney can help you pay for long-term care by buying insurance or enrolling in Medicaid if you qualify for it. Contact Tobin O’Connor Concino P.C. in Washington, D.C. or call 202-362-5900.
Source:
cnbc.com/2025/05/17/why-long-term-care-costs-can-be-a-huge-problem.html
