I just got back from visiting my elderly mom, whom checked into a nursing home in Toronto, Canada three months ago.  After spending two weeks with her, I become more urgent than ever to talk about planning for long term care needs. Even with good system and care in Canada, she still encounter out of pocket money – close to $3,000 per month in order to provide her quality life!

Money is the core of almost all planning.  Even though money doesn’t solve every thing, but it does help!  Last month I talked about some new type of long term care insurance policies.  Purchasing insurance is a great way to shift risk from self to the insurance company.  Some might think what if I never have to use long term care, and then I am wasting my money on the premium! No one knows what the future would bring, but should you ever need it, you don’t want to wish that you should have purchased it!

For those who are reluctant to pay for the premium, but would like to have some kind of long term care solutions, there are other ways to plan for the needs.

There are several life insurance or annuity products developed include long term care needs.  Most of them require medical underwriting.  For instance, some life insurance policies will allow you to take certain percentage from the death benefit to pay for long term care benefit when the needs arise.  The benefit for long term care could be for a fixed period; or with a rider attached it could last life time – which I would highly recommend.  Some annuity contracts provide long term care benefits.  One of the unique features for annuity contract is that life time settlement could prevent money running out before one’s life expires.

Due to the fact that people live longer, recently, insurance companies which issue long term care contracts are planning to re-evaluate long term care insurance premium charges especially for life time benefit. Of course, most likely the premium will increase!

Editor’s Note: This Column is written by Yen Chan, Certified Senior Advisor. The information contains in this column is for general reference only.  Any Specific questions please contact your personal financial professional or Yen Chan at 301-840-8380 or visit www.seniorsolutionusa.com