The Guru Is Now a Believer! – In Long Term Care Insurance

So many times in my practice, I talk to people about planning for their future, specifically their retirement. Part of that retirement planning is protecting your nest egg from the cost of long term care, but too many times I’ve had conversations with good, smart people who just don’t want to discuss the issue of long term care.

Today, I want to introduce a couple of videos by Suze Orman, the well-known financial media mogul. Suze has never been a big proponent of insurance products and long term care, however in these videos she shares her real life experience with her mother who is in need of care that is supposedly costing $25,000-$30,000 a month for home nursing and round-the-clock care. Now she is telling everybody to buy the product, insisting that you need to talk to your parents and make sure that your family has long term care coverage. You also need to have it for yourself.

Too often the reality is that it is too late when most people realize that they need long term care coverage. The time to get it is now, especially with baby boomers hitting their sixties, so many people approaching retirement age in this economy, and people living longer and longer. It is imperative that part of your retirement plan includes a solution for long term care. The government will not pay for your health care in the context of a nursing home, an assisted living arrangement or bringing in an aide or nurse. In her video, Suze Orman talks about her experience which is costing her, out-of-pocket, over $300,000 a year.

The simple fact of the matter is, you can’t buy insurance on a burning building, so don’t become a fan of long term care insurance after the fact. Many people resist because they feel that they will never need to go to a nursing home. But the insurance is not really for nursing homes; it’s for your loved ones, especially women who generally live longer and therefore are at greater risk. Everybody needs to have a plan to protect their wealth from long term care, especially in this low interest rate environment, volatile economy where our assets can be eroded by market fluctuation, inflation, and increased taxes. Adding the cost of long term care to that can be devastating and wipe somebody out.

These products are not necessarily only for wealthy people and the very rich. There are ways for people of more modest means to partially insure or obtain long term care as part of a life insurance policy. The one thing that I don’t recommend is to ignore it. If you do, you run a real significant risk of loss.

Watch these videos, then give me a call to discuss how we can design a plan to help you protect and preserve the wealth you spent your entire life building.

Long Term Care Insurance
America’s Money Class with Suze Orman

CNN Interview with Suze Orman