How Can LTC Insurance Help You Protect Your Assets?

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Plan to create a pool of healthcare dollars that you can use when the time comes.

Provided by Magnate Wealth Management

How will you pay for long-term care? At the moment, you may not be able to answer that question – but long-term care insurance can provide an answer for you.

Why are baby boomers opting to make long-term care coverage an important part of their retirement strategies? The reasons to get an LTC policy at or after age 50 are very compelling.

Your premium payments buy you access to a large pool of money which can be used to pay for long-term care costs. By paying for LTC out of that pool of money, you can help to preserve your retirement savings and income.

The cost of assisted living or nursing home care alone could motivate you to pay for an LTC policy. Genworth Financial conducts a respected annual Cost of Care Survey to gauge the price of long-term care in the U.S. Here is some data from the latest edition:

*In 2016, the median monthly cost of a private room in a nursing home is $7,698. The median monthly cost of a semi-private room is $6,844, 2.27% greater than Genworth’s 2015 estimate.
*How about the median monthly cost of an assisted living facility? That currently comes to $3,628. Thankfully, that has increased only 0.8% from last year.
*The median monthly cost of an in-home health aide (44 hours per week) is $3,861. Across the past five years, that median cost has risen 6.6%.1

When you multiply these monthly cost estimates, the math gets downright scary. Can you imagine taking $45-90K out of your retirement savings to pay for a year of these expenses? What if you have to do it for more than one year?

The Department of Health & Human Services estimates that if you are 65 today, you have about a 70% chance of needing some form of LTC during the balance of your life. About 20% of those who will require it will need LTC for at least five years. Today, the average woman in need of LTC needs it for 3.7 years, while the average man needs it for 2.2 years.2

Why procrastinate? The earlier you opt for LTC coverage, the cheaper the premiums. This is why many people purchase it before they retire.

What it pays for. Some people think LTC coverage only pays for nursing home care. It can actually pay for a variety of nursing, social, and rehabilitative services at home and away from home, for people with a chronic illness or disability. For example, it can fund home health care, care in a group living facility, and adult daycare.3

Choosing a DBA. That stands for Daily Benefit Amount – the maximum amount that your LTC plan will pay per day for care in a nursing home facility. You can choose a Daily Benefit Amount when you pay for your LTC coverage, and you can also choose the length of time that you may receive the full DBA on a daily basis. The DBA typically ranges from a few dozen dollars to hundreds of dollars. Some LTC plans offer you “inflation protection” at enrollment. That means that every few years, you will have the chance to buy additional coverage and get compounding – so your pool of money can grow.

The Medicare misconception. Medicare is not long-term care insurance. At most, it will pay for 100 days of nursing home care, and only if 1) you are getting skilled care, and 2) you go into the nursing home right after a hospital stay of at least 3 days. Medicare also covers limited home visits for skilled care, and some hospice services for the terminally ill. That’s all.4

In some cases, Medicaid might help you pay for nursing home and assisted living care, but it is basically aid for those in dire financial need. Some nursing homes and assisted living facilities don’t accept it, and, for Medicaid to pay for LTC in the first place, the care has to be proven to be “medically necessary” for the patient. Do you really want to wait until you are nearly broke to try and find a way to fund long-term care? Of course not. LTC insurance provides a way to do it.5

Why not look into this? You may have heard that yearly premiums on LTC policies have increased recently. They have – as MarketWatch recently noted, annual premiums for a typical policy covering a 55-year-old couple can exceed $5,000. Those premiums are cheap, however, relative to the financial burden those without LTC policies may face in the future.6

Ask your insurance advisor or financial advisor about some of the LTC choices you can explore – while many Americans have life, health, and disability insurance, that is not the same thing as long-term care coverage.

Magnate Wealth Management may be reached at 502-855-3160 or bgorter@magnatewealth.com.

This material was prepared by MarketingPro, Inc., and does not necessarily represent the views of the presenting party, nor their affiliates. This information has been derived from sources believed to be accurate. Please note – investing involves risk, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional. This information should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and may not be relied on for the purpose of avoiding any Federal tax penalty. This is neither a solicitation nor recommendation to purchase or sell any investment or insurance product or service, and should not be relied upon as such. All indices are unmanaged and are not illustrative of any particular investment.

Registered Investment Advisory services offered through Magnate Wealth Management, LLC., a Registered Investment Adviser. Securities and advisory services offered through Silver Oak Securities, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Magnate Wealth Management, LLC., Capital Wealth Management, LLC. and Silver Oak Securities, Inc. are separate entities

Citations.
1 – tinyurl.com/hbc3s2a [5/10/16]
2 – longtermcare.gov/the-basics/how-much-care-will-you-need/ [7/6/16]
3 – doi.nv.gov/Consumers/Long-Term-Care-Insurance/ [7/6/16]
4 – medicareadvocacy.org/18-medicare-doesnt-cover-long-term-nursing-home-care/ [7/6/16]
5 – nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/when-will-medicaid-pay-nursing-home-assisted-living.html [7/6/16]
6 – marketwatch.com/story/can-you-afford-5000-a-year-for-long-term-care-insurance-2015-06-25 [6/25/15]

Why Life Insurance Matters

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Besides the death benefit, it may also help you financially during your life.

Provided by Magnate Wealth Management

As Bankrate.com noted, 43% of Americans have no life insurance. Some view it as optional; some have simply procrastinated when it comes to buying a policy. Others believe that they can’t afford it.1

In reality, life insurance is cheap today. If you just want term life coverage – essentially, life insurance that you “rent” for X number of years – you may find it quite affordable wherever you live. Plugging in some sample variables, a little comparison shopping online reveals that a 40-year-old, non-smoking woman in excellent health who lives in New Hampshire would pay premiums of just $380-420 a year for a 20-year level term policy with a $500,000 death benefit. (She would have several providers to choose from.)2

If you choose permanent life insurance rather than term life, new possibilities emerge. In addition to a benefit for your heirs at your death, an insurance policy capable of building cash value gives you more capability to address financial needs during your lifetime.

Permanent life insurance allows you the opportunity to build cash value. The premiums on a whole, universal, or variable life policy are higher than for a term life policy, but there is a reason for that – as you pay into one of these policies, the policy, itself, accumulates cash value. That cash value grows without being taxed.3

In all probability, the cash value will continue to be available as long as you live. While it’s true that some insurance companies have gone under, the reality is that very, very few do. They guarantee the death benefit and the viability of the policy as long as you keep making the premium payments.3

If you need a loan someday, a cash value life policy may give you an option. Some of these policies allow withdrawals of the cash value, meaning that you can borrow against the cash value once you have funded the policy with a sufficient amount of premiums. (You can even tap the cash value to pay the premiums, if you like.) Naturally, loans taken from the policy will reduce the death benefit amount. The policyholder faces no requirement to pay back the loan, but the loan is subject to interest.3

Many of these policies come with degrees of flexibility. You may be able to transfer some of the cash value into another insurance product with the death benefit unaffected.

The death benefit may do much to preserve your loved ones’ quality of life. Life insurance death benefit proceeds are almost never taxed (only under rare circumstances does the IRS count them as gross income). So a permanent life policy will give your heirs money to address funeral and burial expenses and possible estate taxes, and those funds could also provide them with part of their inheritance.4

Cash value life insurance also means permanent coverage as long as the policy is in force. The death benefit will not be readjusted or diminished if you fall ill, and if you buy a policy in your thirties or forties, you save money compared to those who purchase a policy after age 50.

Permanent life insurance is also highly useful in estate planning. Several kinds of trusts may be used in conjunction with permanent life policies, such as irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs), special needs trusts, spendthrift trusts, simple living trusts, and more. Often, a trust can be named as beneficiary of a permanent life policy, an estate planning step toward an eventual financial benefit to heirs.5

First and foremost, life insurance matters for its death benefit – but those considering it should not overlook its financial utility in other situations during the course of life.

Magnate Wealth Management may be reached at 502-855-3160 or bgorter@magnatewealth.com.

This material was prepared by MarketingPro, Inc., and does not necessarily represent the views of the presenting party, nor their affiliates. This information has been derived from sources believed to be accurate. Please note – investing involves risk, and past performance is no guarantee of future results. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional. This information should not be construed as investment, tax or legal advice and may not be relied on for the purpose of avoiding any Federal tax penalty. This is neither a solicitation nor recommendation to purchase or sell any investment or insurance product or service, and should not be relied upon as such. All indices are unmanaged and are not illustrative of any particular investment.

Registered Investment Advisory services offered through Magnate Wealth Management, LLC., a Registered Investment Adviser. Securities and advisory services offered through Silver Oak Securities, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Magnate Wealth Management, LLC., Capital Wealth Management, LLC. and Silver Oak Securities, Inc. are separate entities.

Citations.
1 – bankrate.com/financing/insurance/how-painful-is-the-life-insurance-talk/ [9/15/15]
2 – term4sale.com/cgi-bin/cqsl.cgi [8/9/16]
3 – investopedia.com/terms/c/cash-value-life-insurance.asp [8/9/16]
4 – irs.gov/Help-&-Resources/Tools-&-FAQs/FAQs-for-Individuals/Frequently-Asked-Tax-Questions-&-Answers/Interest,-Dividends,-Other-Types-of-Income/Life-Insurance-&-Disability-Insurance-Proceeds/Life-Insurance-&-Disability-Insurance-Proceeds [1/1/16]
5 – aol.com/article/2015/05/07/how-to-supercharge-trusts-with-life-insurance/21173793/ [5/7/15]