There is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. It is estimated that 70 percent of people over the age of 65 will need some form of long term care. And, in 2012, the average cost of a nursing home reached $90,000 per year. Those costs can ruin or at least wreak havoc on anybody's retirement plans.
In the past, long-term care insurance was a very straight forward and affordable solution. However, with rising costs, the biggest objection that I am hearing from my clients is that they do not want to pay a premium for something they may never need. They are looking for a new approach.
Fortunately, for them, there is a new approach. This new approach is called Asset-Based long term care insurance and combines a long-term care policy with life insurance. This unique combination provides people with three guaranteed benefits. 1) long-term care if you need it; 2) life insurance if you don't need long-term care; and 3) 100 percent return of premium if you ever want to cancel the policy.
The great thing about this concept is that no matter what happens, you are guaranteed to get back at least what you put in, and that is what puts people at ease.
This truely is the smarter way to self-insure, because in reality, all you are doing is taking "safe money" from a CD or Money Market that is earning very little interest and transferring it to a new account. Once in the new account, your money leverages multiple times for long-term care, but if you never need it the asset passes on tax free in the form of life insurance to a beneficiary of your choosing.
