Dr. K is dead. He took his own advice.


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Where is the nearest bridge?

My wife and I have had LTC insurance for 12 years now, The premiums have never gone up and I hope we never have to use it. The bottom line, at least for us, is peace of mind. If we should need to go into an assisted living or Nursing home we will be able to choose the one we like and not have to consider cost. As for Medicaid paying although that's true I believe you can only have $2000 in assets and a monthly allowance of $30 per month from your SS, a friend of my wife's whose Father is in a Nursing home in Illinois gave us those figures.

If you want to prepare for the possibility of needing Medicaid, you can transfer assets to your children or someone else you trust at least 5 years prior to applying for Medicaid. Then, they can use the assets to supplement your income while you are on Medicaid and in a nursing home. Assets transferred within 5 years of applying may make you ineligible for Medicaid. Most people living long term in nursing homes are on Medicaid.

Children pauperize their parents to enable them to qualify for Medicaid, right or wrong.

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Per my earlier post in this thread. While the average stay in a skilled nursing facility might be 3 or 4 months, I would posit that the average stay in an assisted living facility is much longer. In many cases it years not months. To qualify for payment under a Long Term Care facility you need to be unable to perform 2 or 3 ADLs .. Activities for Daily Living .. While some may argue that they will take home care of their spouse that may have suffered a debilitating stroke or injury, most that have endured that misfortune would argue otherwise. There is a difference between an assisted living facility offering those services and a full scale nursing home. With duplicate expenses in dual residences, the costs can quickly get unmanageable. For those that think tey are being clever "bankrupting themselves" to qualify for a Medicaid eligible nursing home, I'd recommend visiting both a private pay and a medicaid nursing home. If that's the way to want to spend your last few months, go for it ..

Long Term Care
 

Long Term Care insurance relies on the viability of the insurer (20+ years hence) and on the accuracy of their predictions on longevity of our generation.

The small print (the exclusion clauses) often leave room for the insurer to reject a claim. In that case they can extend the court case until after death.

This leaves the fight to those who inherit the estate and they are likely to settle for minimal money. They are busy with their own lives.

In addition, the insurance company often has the right to decrease payments if their actuarial experience is different than predicted.

These (and other) variables should leave us very hesitant to send premiums.

Do you know where a private pay nursing home (not assisted living) exists? I have never found one. All nursing homes I have ever visited depended heavily on Medicaid, with most of the residents on it and receiving the same quality of care as the paying customers.

Long Term Care
 

Yes, buy it. Lord willing you will never need it. You go to bed one night and wake up in Heaven. How long have you had home ins? car ins? medical ins? How much have you paid for those over the past 50 years? Odds of your house burning down is 1 - 1200. Odds of needing care is 7 - 10 people. We're living much longer. Very few of us leave this world without some kind of care. People don't consider "care" when a family member is doing it. I sold LTC insurance for years. I saw what a family endured when someone needed help with just the basic things - grocery shopping, meal prep, appointments, house maintenance, etc. Someone has to do those things. What will be the health of those trying to take care of you. If you have care for 6-12 months, you will recoup all of your premiums. I could go on and on. Seek advice from your financial planner.

Long Term Care Insurance
 

In response to those that said they would rather use what assets they have for any long term care and when all the money runs out Medicaid kicks in. That's fine if you don't mind moving out of your 5 star facility into a 2 star or lower facility. The smell alone will make you sick.

This happened to my mother and I fought very hard to find a clean, well run facility that would take her monthly social security income and balance for care from Medicaid.

I was very concerned for myself and purchased a LTC policy with State Farm 20 years ago never thinking I would need it. I am currently in an Assisted Living Senior Living Community and my fee is $4650 per month for a one bedroom. State Farm LTC pays all but $979.00. When in a nursing home it pays 100%. The community is across the US called Spectrum Senior Living and is rated 5 stars from my own experience.

So, don't forget the old saying, "You get what you pay for."

Excuse me, but your math does not make any sense at all. If you sold LTC insurance and 70 percent of the people who bought it needed care and they recovered all of their premiums in 6-12 months, how did the company make any money, or even be able to pay the claims? How did they pay for the people who needed care for 5 or 10 years? How did they pay your salary, commissions, and company overhead? It just does not add up.

Schaumburger - We are still in the retirement learning process and probably will be for some time. There are so many retirement topics where we find we need to be educated. Kudos to you for being such an avid researcher. We have started to do our estate planning. We recently learned that FL Medicaid works differently than almost every other state. If you are planning on retiring in FL, as you seem to be, I would recommend that you work with a financial planner/estate planner/tax planner that is in this state. Many of them hold free seminars and/or provide free consultation. Take advantage while you are visiting TV to check this out.

retiredguy123 has it correct, in FL, you can, through a "Medicaid" Trust, protect your assets from being spent down in order to qualify you for Medicaid. You have your FL elder care attorney create the irrevocable trust and then you wait until just before you need Medicaid to fund it. The current law allows a five year look back (claw back) and the younger you are when you set it up, the greater the dollar assets you will be able to protect. So, if you set up your "Medicaid" Trust early, you will (likely) pass the five year mark before you need Medicaid, and will be able to protect substantial assets, which can still be used to provide for your care, definitely nursing home and some assisted living facilities. (Assisted Living facilities in FL can take Medicaid, which is not the same in many other states.)

The reason I (and others here) mention this is that it may diminish the need to purchase LTC insurance. Sure, LTC can give you home health care options and SWAN peace of mind, but at what cost and what potential negatives. Only you can make your decision here and I applaud you for applying for LTC and finding out what the policy premiums and benefits are for you....but before you buy, you might want to look at the "Medicaid" Trust option. You pay a one time fee to set it up. It stays unfunded until you need it (which may be never). It will protect all your non-income assets from going to a nursing home. (Income Assets that are used to pay for your nursing home care are: Social Security, Pensions, RMDs from your IRAs/401(k)s ). This is only good if you live in Florida/homestead in FL.

Please note that the "Medicaid" Trust is not the same as the Life Estate Trust where you create the trust and retitle your home(s), personal property, bank accounts, etc. into the Life Estate Trust (aka Family Trust; A and B Trusts, etc.) These are different legal instruments and do different things.