Caregivers and Stress

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

You touched on something important Dapper.

Money.

If our parents or ourselves were/are able to save/invest/have long-term care insurance; it is much, much easier to ensure needed care, than if we do not.

My parents are very well-off. They both had great jobs and my father invested and saved.

Originally Posted by Kelt

Dapper, are you listening? There are tons of services available to the elderly if they low income qualify. If they have assets, all of that just evaporates.

Yes, Sir, I am! Why do you think mumsie has long term care insurance!

The first order of business for me after Dad died was to find mom a good financial advisor. He said that my mother was in that sweet spot place financially where based on her age (and other health data), she should have enough money to live through the rest of her life, including assisted living needs. The other option was long term care insurance. I voted for long term health care insurance, my sister agreed, and mom rolled with it. I do believe I did due diligence in choosing the policy and had enough information to be convinced it wouldn't "go away" or something when she finally needed to access it. It is also very low criteria of medical assistance needed, in order to get it activated.

She put down a HUGE amount of money to buy it in one block. At that time, doing monthly payments meant that if you didn't use it (i.e. died before you needed to access it), your heirs lose it. With buying the the policy outright, and if it wasn't used, your heirs got more than half back. I heard that this changed at some point since we bought mom's policy; heirs will get some money back even if owners of the policies paid monthly for it.

Anyway, the data shows that people die on average between 2-3 years after moving into assisted living. The policy that my mother bought will cover her for 6 years for an assisted living apartment costing slightly more than twice the amount of the average cost of an assisted living facility per month around here. I believe the data indicated that services in her home - even 24 hour coverage- would last about that long, too. I dunno. Then, of course, if she needs more, she still (hopefully) will ahve enough money to cover her until the end. She only spends what she makes per year, pretty much. I DO think it will be ok. Otherwise, I think that my rich sister should cover her costs! lol

Did you look into/encourage your mother to buy long term care insurance after your father's death (I think I asked you once if they had any and you said no?). If not, why not?

I have heard that the price for long term care has gone of astronomically since my mother bought her policy 6 years ago. It had already gone up a great deal at the time she purchased; supposedly when these type of policies came out insurance companies set the cost of those policies too low and were scrambling to get on top of it.

I didn't know really anything about long term care before I looked into it, but having worked with the severely mentally ill in the past, I knew a lot about medical care, including the fact that they had to have NOTHING in order to get into long term care facilities. That is what started my hunt.

Do you recommend parents selling their houses to their kids early on so that this asset could not be touched? I am just thinking about how it is problematic if a person sells/gives money to their heirs less than 5 years before prior to their "spin down". At that was my understanding 10 years ago. Or something like that.