Tag: benefits

How Do You Get a Claim Paid?

Over 99% of long-term care insurance policies sold today are tax-qualified,* which means the way to get a claim paid is the same as it is Federally controlled in order for the premiums to be tax-free according to IRS guidelines and enjoy other tax incentives. Just like you can need care physically or mentally, you can trigger the benefits in one of those two ways.

Continue reading

Planning for Long-Term Care Inflation Isn’t Rocket Science, Folks

The new John Hancock Benefit Builder product has turned long-term care insurance into an investment instead of an insurance product.

Continue reading

Long-Term Care Insurance: A Priceless Equation

CNBC allows you to vote on “Would You Buy Long-Term Care Insurance” at this story: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47703131 This article says the premiums are expensive.  I hear that all the time.  Are they expensive? I have to expand the question to those who make that statement. Long-term care insurance premiums are expensive compared to what? Compared to …

Continue reading

How the Supreme Court Decision Affects Long-Term Care Insurance

The Supreme Court decision on June 28, 2012 makes it even more critical for people to own long-term care insurance as it is highly questionable as to how many Medicaid dollars will be there for LTC in the future. In 20-30 years, people who need long-term care will be sharply divided between haves and have-nots. Many people who elected to self-insure will be squarely in the middle of the have-not bucket as the cost of care soars to $1000 a day in 30 years. Money buys choices. Without long-term care insurance, most families simply won’t have the money to buy care and their worst nightmare will happen as the burden for their care falls on their children and grandchildren.

Continue reading

Bad Advice to Lower Daily Benefit to Lower LTC Insurance Premium

Response to Terry Savage article “Long-Term Care-LESS”, MoneyShow.com, March 19, 2012 http://www.moneyshow.com/investing/article/11/Blog-27057/Long-Term-Care-LESS/ The 90% rate increase by John Hancock is not a responsible rate increase in my opinion. They were asleep at the wheel, not realizing that was coming. But in all fairness – this article makes it sound like long-term care insurance rate increases …

Continue reading

Your Customized Benefit Selection Process

The following is an abbreviated section from my book The ABC’s of Long-Term Care Insurance – keepin’ it REALLY simple for you, folks! To simplify the benefit selection process, there are six major choices that impact a premium. Here is each choice and a recommendation. 1a) Daily or Monthly Benefit – Look at the average …

Continue reading

State Budget Shortfalls and State-Specific Budget Cuts

Public-Private Long-Term Care Insurance Plans will have a tremendously positive impact on state budgets if we educate employers to offer it now to all employees to decrease cuts in other services like you see here.

Continue reading

States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact

By Elizabeth McNichol, Phil Oliff, and Nicholas Johnson

The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. State tax collections, adjusted for inflation, are now 12 percent below pre-recession levels, while the need for state-funded services has not declined. As a result, even after making very deep spending cuts over the last two years, states continue to face large budget gaps.

Continue reading

An Update on State Budget Cuts

By Nicholas Johnson, Phil Oliff, and Erica Williams

With tax revenue still declining as a result of the recession and budget reserves largely drained, the vast majority of states have made spending cuts that hurt families and reduce necessary services. These cuts, in turn, have deepened states’ economic problems because families and businesses have less to spend.

Continue reading