Thought for the day:

“You know you’re old if they have discontinued your blood type”

Phyllis Diller

 

If you will read no further:

One in 9 – The number of Americans age 65 living with Alzheimer’s Disease.*

One in 3 – The number of victims age 85 and over.*

Five million – The total number of Americans currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. *

Sixteen million – The projected number of victims in 2050.*

                                    *According to the Alzheimer’s Association

Add to that Heart disease, Cancer, Respiratory Diseases and strokes (the top four causes of death) how can you not encourage your clients to adopt a long-term care strategy while they are still young enough and healthy enough to choose from all their options?

 

Thought for the week:

RETIREMENT STRATEGIES INVOLVING INSURANCE EVERY PLANNER SHOULD UNDERSTAND. 

Not all clients will have enough money in retirement to provide their desired income and protect themselves against the exorbitant cost of long-term care. For the client who still has time before he/she retires, one should make a concerted effort to offer the new life insurance products that pay for long-term care. Many clients carry insurance policies (or at least they should) to provide financial protection for their family should they die prematurely. Some use term insurance designed to expire when they reach their middle 60’s or even before….inexpensive but limited.

The most popular life insurance policies today include accelerated benefit riders that pay the death benefit early for long-term care. Having a life insurance policy in force today for, say, $500k that could pay $10,000 per month for long-term care is much more useful than one that only pays at death. Whether it’s term insurance or Universal Life, your clients should be converting their coverage to one of these products. This is not the same as MoneyGuard or the other products we offer as a specific strategy for LTCi. Instead they offer the opportunity to grow the equity in the policy over the younger years so that at retirement, long-term care is addressed with a policy that is paid up, or at least requires little to maintain it in force.

We suggest that your clients pay a little more and purchase a UL policy that will build cash value so they will be able to utilize it in retirement for long-term care protection and not have to deal with that issue at a much higher cost. Almost every company offers these new riders, but only a few provide their benefits under Section 7702B of the code and pay true long-term care benefits vs. Sec.101(g) plans which are more limited in their ability to address long-term care. Of course we offer both to give the greatest flexibility when addressing the particular needs of your client.

In order to better understand what I am talking about, pick a couple of clients in their 40’s or 50’s who own (or should own) existing insurance policies and call Nancy Woo or Randy Masciarelli (both are at 800-238-8144), tell them the age, sex, health status, the amount of insurance they currently own and how much they are paying for it. We will show you how little it will cost to upgrade their coverage and take a major LTCi issue off the table for them in retirement. You will be amazed at what a great service you will be doing for your client.

NEXT WEEK, ANOTHER STRATEGY DESIGNED TO MAKE SURE THEIR PORTFOLIO PROVIDES AS MUCH SECURE RETIREMENT INCOME AS POSSIBLE