Long Term Care Planning… and Love
What’s the sentiment at the heart of long term care planning? No, it's not fear. (Of care costs or gaps in Medicare.) It's not even concern. (About medical conditions or Medicaid eligibility.) I’m talking about love. Yes, I know Valentine’s Day is in the rear view mirror. That’s OK. The kind of love I’m talking about transcends flowers and cards.
Consider the motivation that causes a young parent to purchase their first large life insurance policy. The motivation? Love. Love for the other parent, were something unexpected to happen– and, of course, love for the baby. Going through the application process and writing a check for life insurance is just the kind of self-sacrificing love that parents express in a myriad of ways.
Nowhere is the sentiment of love clearer than the purchase of life insurance; after all, the insured won’t even be there to benefit in anyway!
A different, but related, kind of love is displayed when a person purchases disability insurance. A type of self love is at work here. When someone is sick or hurt and can’t work, disability insurance replaces their lost earned income ensuring they have what they need to still get by. And even though disability insurance only affects your own replacement wages, it can possibly help to protect those who also rely on your income, or, people’s income who you might have to rely on if you couldn’t work anymore.
I believe that, for most people, the motivation to do long term care planning– and to purchase long term care insurance– lies along the same vein as the two scenarios above.
The long term care planner understands very well that their care choices are greatly enhanced by having private long term care insurance. After all, long term care insurance benefits add to the amount of money someone has available for care. And private pay only caregivers understand that most policies’ insurance proceeds can only be used for caregiving. A policy is like having a bank account that can only be used to pay for long term care!
When you talk to the owner of a private pay home care company, or, the executive director of an assisted living facility, you will learn that they love long term care insurance. Why? It makes it easier for someone needing care to use their services and they know they will be paid easily!
Let’s consider one last kind of insurance purchase. Have you purchased or ever seen a television or mail solicitation for burial insurance (sometimes called final expense insurance)? Seniors are purchasing these policies en masse. Their motivation? They don’t want adult children (or relatives or close friends) to be stuck with the funeral home bill after they pass. The motivation for the purchase? You may call it simply practical, but I think in many cases it’s love.
Planning-minded people have been buying burial life insurance coverage for generations. These types of companies first formed around 1800. In contrast, the first modern long term care insurance policies have only been available since about the 1980’s. Does the relatively short history of long term care insurance explain why someone may choose to purchase insurance to cover their burial but not to cover the caregiving that often happens first?
We know that the casualties of failing to plan for long term care can be great. Life savings, inheritances, and retirement income fall victim to uninsured professional paid caregiving. Interrupted careers and strained familial relationships are among the costs frequently borne by informal unpaid caregiving.
Whether they are caring mothers or fathers, or, simply desirous of private pay choices should long term care be needed, financially savvy people easily fall in love with the benefits of having a long term care policy.
Valentine’s Day is past. But Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are straight ahead. What better way to show your children how much you love them than the purchase of a long term care insurance policy?
For more information please feel free to contact Baygroup Insurance at http://www.baygroupinsurance.com/forms/contact-us or call us at 410-557-7907.
