What's YOUR Strategy for an Extended Care Situation?

I’ve served scores of people with Long Term Care insurance. No. I don’t mean I’ve sold hundreds of insurance policies. What I mean is that I owned a home care agency that provided in-home care to countless people with LTC insurance.

At one point, it got so crazy that I was getting calls and emails from other home care agency owners literally from all around the U.S! They’d ask about claims processes or qualifications to trigger benefits or even what policies were the best and which ones were subpar. I spoke at conferences and was recognized as an expert on both home care issues and long-term care insurance. I even wrote a book on home care that was used by families exploring care options and got letters and notes thanking me from people coast to coast.

Had I been an insurance broker when I owned my home care agency, I’m confident that I could have easily sold tons of LTC insurance without even breaking a sweat. Virtually every adult child of literally every client we served either immediately saw the value in their parents’ LTC policy or the need for coverage because they had not planned for an extended care situation.

My agency served a higher end clientele. We exclusively served those who privately paid (many times through a trust officer) or who had LTC insurance. My business decision was to cater to those people who had the resources – either through available liquid assets or through the benefits of their LTC policy – to self-fund needed care.

A while back, I sold my home care agency and now devote my time to educating and securing the right strategic coverage for a similarly higher-end clientele.

Hybrid Life/Long-Term Care insurance can be the right fit for people who want to:

Ensure coverage for an extended care situation

Receive a death benefit if no assistance or services are ever needed...and even have a death benefit if all the long-term care services are exhausted!

Have a guaranteed return of premium if your situation changes and you no longer want or need the protection

Avoid the traditional "use it or lose it" proposition of traditional long-term care policies.

If you don't have the financial ability to invest in a policy that will provide the coverage you need, this is probably not the strategy for you. If you can make a single premium or even take premiums out over 5, 7, 10 or even 15 years, this could be for you.

Hybrid policies reduce people’s fear of wasting premiums by offering two exit strategies. The first exit strategy is a return of premium after a vesting period. It's comforting to know that you can at least get a mulligan if you change your mind and want to cancel the policy.

Secondly, there is a death benefit that is paid to your heirs when you die. It’s reassuring to have the confidence that the money paid in premiums for the hybrid policy will be given to your kids through a death benefit.

Today’s hybrid life/long-term care policies can be incredible values for the right people.

If no long-term care benefits are received, the guaranteed death benefit equals the stated death benefit amount when the policy was issued.

There are return of premium guarantees

Cash indemnity means you don’t have to keep up with receipts or invoices from care providers or facilities.

Both simple and compound inflation options are available

Issue ages range from 40 to 75 years of age (though the premium schedule varies based on your age)

Underwriting is streamlined

As an aside, two comments I heard repeatedly through the years were:

(1) LTC insurance is too expensive. Very frankly, it just simply is not when you consider that even with an older traditional policy the monthly benefit is roughly equivalent to what they had paid in annual premium. I’ll take a 12 to 1 return on my investments any day.

(2) LTC insurance is “use it or lose it” and that’s an expensive gamble on something that I may or may not even need. That statement was somewhat true for some of the older traditional policies sold; if you never utilized the benefits, the premium dollars were lost. Outside of the statistics that indicate if you do live a long life there is a great chance that at some point you will require assistance with an extended care situation, I didn’t have an answer.

Having firsthand experience with families who have not planned for an extended care situation, I can share with you that it can be devastating. Spouses and adult children naturally suffer emotional stress and some even have to become at least part-time caregivers for their spouse or parent. I’ve also seen the financial stress that a lack of preparedness can wreak on a family.

The time for planning is now. Let me explain.

All of us want to live a long, healthy and fulfilling life, right? And we’re living longer these days so it’s reasonable to expect we will live a long life.

If we live long lives, it is also reasonable to expect that at some point, we will require assistance to maintain as much independence as possible in the setting of our choice.

Clearly it is not a pleasant to imagine a critical illness or even something as dire as Alzheimer’s later in life. That is precisely why it is wise to protect yourself and your family from the hardships that will undeniably come with it.

I served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Alzheimer’s Arkansas (they do a remarkable service, by the way). We got to see up close and personal the countless cases of families hit by that devastating disease. We saw families literally torn apart when what they thought would never happen, happened and they got that dreadful diagnosis.

Again, what I’d like to share is for a highly targeted audience. I very much enjoy working with higher-end clients who recognize the value of planning for their future and are interested in learning more about how a hybrid life/long-term care policy can provide the protection needed.

I'll happily and immediately send you information on what has become my favorite Hybrid Life/Long-Term Care policy. It contains all the details and information you'll need to begin taking the next steps. Click here and tell me where to send it. Or, just shoot me at sam@arkansasltc.com and I'll get it right over to you.

Send me information on hybrid Life/Long-Term Care insurance