We have prepared a special guide to help you better understand Long-Term Care and Long-Term Care Insurance and how Long-Term Care Insurance can help you protect your hard-earned assets when you are not eligible for publicly funded programs.

Pertinent information and interactive tools are organized to help you understand not only Long-Term Care but also the potential financial ramifications of a Long-Term Care need. We invite you to take your time and explore this information at your leisure, and if you have any questions, please contact us.

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Excerpts from avoidmedicaid.com

What is long-term care?

Long-Term Care services are those services designed to assist someone who has lost some or all of the ability to care for himself or herself due to an illness, an accident or simply the frailty of aging.

Long-term care includes a wide range of services which help people maintain the normal activities of daily living; activities like bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting and transferring (like moving from a bed to a chair or from a chair to standing, etc.). Long-term care services can be provided in your home, in and through community resources or in a formal setting such as a nursing home or assisted living facility.

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Considering the Risk

True or False - Long-Term Care Insurance is something that only older people should consider.

The answer is unequivocally False.

A frequent misperception is that long-term care insurance is only for the elderly or infirm. In reality, 40% of people receiving care today are between the ages of 18 and 64.¹

It's not hard to imagine why such is the case: automobile and recreational accidents (skiing, horseback riding etc.) or illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, stroke or heart attack. We all know of or can think of younger people who have had accidents which caused paralysis or someone who has a disease, such as Parkinson's.

And so, with so many working-age adults requiring long-term care services, it is easy to see that Long-Term Care Insurance is a product that everyone, regardless of age, needs to carefully consider as an addition to his or her risk management planning.

Long-term care services are only covered by Long-Term Care Insurance. It seems simple enough, but it's true - and it bears repeating...long-term care services are only covered by Long-Term Care Insurance.

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More information from http://www.avoidmedicaid.com

Can I Afford to Self-Insure Against the Risk?

Often people think they can save the money that they would have spent on long-term care insurance premiums and simply invest it to meet their future long-term care needs. Although this sounds good in theory, several problems exist. First, a long-term care plan must be a plan you can depend on to actually meet your future needs, not one that might possibly meet those needs.  It is impossible to save enough money, even with interest, to equal the benefits that could be paid out under an Unlimited Long-Term Care Insurance policy.  Even under optimum conditions, your savings would barely provide 1 year of long-term care. And you could never enjoy that money, because it would always have to remain in reserves should a long-term care need arise.

When trying to put this idea into practical application, several factors must happen to insure its success.

• You can never miss a savings payment to your investment fund.

• You must consistently receive a high enough return on your money for sustained growth.

• You must make sure you don't need care until you have enough money saved to pay for it.

Even if you could guarantee all of the conditions above you still would not be able to put enough money away (even with a great rate of return) to pay for an extended long-term care stay that lasted much over a year.

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Because long-term care insurance requires you to be in good health, this planning option is not available to everyone, especially older applicants for whom the premiums may also be prohibitive. If you are at least 62 years of age and you own your home, you could use a reverse mortgage to pay for care at home or for a long-term care insurance policy that otherwise may be unaffordable.

A reverse mortgage is a means of borrowing money from the amount you have already paid for your house. You are freeing up money that would otherwise only be available to you if you sold the house. You can stay in the house until you die, without making monthly payments. The loan is repaid when the borrower dies or sells the home. The balance of the equity in the home will go to the homeowner’s estate.

Payments can be received monthly, in a lump sum or the money can be used as a line of credit. The funds received from a reverse mortgage are tax-free.

While the eligibility age is 62, it is best to wait until your early 70s or later. The older the borrower, the larger the amount of equity available. There are maximum limits set by the federal government each year as to how much of the equity can be borrowed. Usually only about 50% of the value of the home is made available in the form of a reverse mortgage.

You can use the funds from a reverse mortgage to cover the cost of home-health care. Because the loan must be repaid if you cease to live in the home, long-term care outside the home can't be paid for with a reverse equity mortgage unless a co-owner of the property who qualifies continues to live in the home.

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Use Your Home to Stay at Home Program
The National Council on the Aging, with the support of both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is laying the groundwork for a powerful public-private partnership to increase the use of reverse mortgages to help pay for long-term care. The ultimate goal of the Use Your Home to Stay at Home™ program is to increase the appropriate use of reverse mortgages so that millions of homeowners can tap home equity to pay for long-term care services or insurance.

Reverse Mortgages Can Help with Long-Term Care Expenses, Study Says

A new study by The National Council on the Aging (NCOA) shows that using reverse mortgages to pay for long-term care at home has real potential in addressing what remains a serious problem for many older Americans and their families.