Kelly Fasterling - Chapter Six - Long Term Care - Do You Need It?

Join Jeff Roediger and Co- Host Kelly Fasterling as we discuss Long Term Care.   It is very important to understand how it works and what your options are:

- Do You Need It? If so, what is the best way to obtain it and fund it.

-  Should you consider The Federal Long Term Care (FLTCIP) ? 

-  How to compare FLTCIP to Alternatives...

- Can you afford to purchase it?   Can you afford not to have this benefit?

Transcript

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This conference will now be recorded. Welcome back, everybody, to our continuing conversation about what each of you federal, please need to be looking at retirement. My guest host is Kelly Fastlane. Kelly, welcome back. Thank you. So today, we're gonna break this up into more than one session, because there's a lot to it. Today, we're going to introduce the topic of long term care. And why it's so important, everybody, you know, we get a lot of people reaching out to us saying, I need help with my retirement planning. And then we get in the group benefits. And I think there's a disconnect sometimes. So let's jump right into it. Why should somebody be concerned about long term care? Well, let's talk kind of big picture in generally about long term care, the purpose of long term care, and some of us start hitting this, when we start working with our parents that are getting a bit older, is to cover you in the case that you lose some of those activities of daily living, the six that are typically touted are being able to bathe yourself, dress yourself, feed yourself, move about, and then have good continents. So 70% of the population usually requires some kind of care, you know, somewhere through their life. And then historically, 80% of that care is provided in their home, by by unpaid caregivers, like spouses, or kids. Now, the length of time that somebody is in Kerrigan, you look at the averages, it's about 4.3 years. So that's a long time to be caring for somebody. So that's really where that long term care comes in, is, you know, maybe you don't have the spouse or children, you're locally to take care of you and make you need some of that little extra assistance. Well, in to your point, I have a personal a personal situation, my mother and father in law are actually going to be moving across the country to live with us, because what you just pointed out? Yeah, how about that? It's difficult, isn't it? It is very difficult. In fact, my wife is back east right now. And they just listed their house today, she had to go in because my brother in law has been their caretaker, unpaid caretaker for like five years, and they've gradually got worse. So as we lead into this, you know, what options are, you know, in mind was a good people, but just some of the planning that could have been done might have been a, you know, might have helped give them the freedom they want. because trust me, they didn't want to leave the house 40 years, and she has dementia, and he has advanced Parkinson's, and they lived in a two storey. So it's just gotten to the point where they can't now they don't know. I mean, in their minds are fine. Right, right. But it's very hard, because I want to keep their dignity and word. So this is kind of a way for them. Fortunately, were able to do it. But this is a way for them to not have to go into the system, but not not everybody has that. And then you have both of them that are deteriorating at the same time. So yeah, it's very timely that we're having this discussion it right now. I mean, my wife texted me this morning, the house is listed there. So yeah, so what are their options? Well, there are really four ways to insure yourself as you as you look forward, one in and one of the common ones is just buying that long term care policy. And years ago, that was an awesome value for the premium that you paid, you got a lot for your money. Today, not as much, those premiums just continue to go up. Even after you've secured your policy, the premiums continue to go up, and you just don't get as much benefit for the dollar that you're paying. Right. Now, what most people probably do is insure themselves because they really haven't either planned or that long term policy just didn't look like it was worth the value. And so instead, they just it comes out of their savings. You know, if they need to go into assisted living, maybe they're shelling out you know, three to 5000 a month or more, or semi private nursing as they get to need more and more care. It might be closer to 7000 a month in today's dollars. Some, some people can hire in some in home care. But that still is a is a couple 1000 a month. So the options are fairly pricey if you once you insure yourself. Now there are a couple other opportunities for for products that that could help out in the long run. And they come in could have a life insurance flavor with a life insurance company, it could be an annuity, you know, we've heard of an annuity before especially like with fers, that there might be an annuity. And if you get an annuity that has an income rider, many of them will double your income for a period of let's say, five years, if you have a terminal or chronic or nursing home need. Okay. And then the other is life insurance. Life Insurance is kind of a neat tool. Depending on how you use it. Most people think of life insurance more as risk mitigation. And when I die, my, my family's going to be okay. But life insurance can be an excellent living tool that while you're living, you can use it in many, many ways. And one of those ways is for that long term care borrowing against the death benefit. So both are really viable options to handle, you know, terminal illness, chronic illness, nursing home needs, if you need some of that in the future. Interesting. So if a former federal employee out there, and I'm paying for my fegli insurance, maybe I should get with you to talk about what benefit I'm getting through the government's plan versus looking at an individual plan. Now you also have the the federal employees have their own long term care product, correct? They do they do. It's the FL TC IP that federal Long Term Care Insurance. It's a group Long Term Care Policy. And it's available to all the members of the family and you can enroll really at any time. And that premium is based on the age when you apply. But again, as I mentioned, with long term care, insurance premiums can change. So look back to 2006, when those federal long term care premiums, they went up 83%. Wow. So the benefits changed, too. And there's just frankly, no real promise of service with many of those long term care products. So you've got to look pretty closely at the different choices that you have to see, which is going to provide you the best value when you need it. Okay, so a lot of moving parts a lot of money back. Yeah. So that goes back to the discovery conversation we had in one of our previous podcasts, we didn't catch that you need to go back and pick that one up. Because that's what you have. You have to have information from everybody. And now as we go through these sessions, people that are listening are starting to say, you know what, that makes sense. That's why, you know, I need to work with somebody that can oversee this because there's so many moving parts. You may think you have it together and you don't. Exactly, exactly. So okay. If somebody has a question, just in general on their benefits or retirement, how do they get ahold of you? With our 800 number, it's 888-545-8840. Extension 700 will route you to to my team, or you can email at Kelly at Gulf resource.com. And as a federal police, you can check out our website at fed checklist.com fed checklist.com connecting federal employees to financial solutions what we do and Kelly is one of those financial solution advocates and that's and I think you just heard why and there's a checklist there that you should look at. You can also download a retirement report that no cost and budget worksheet that are very important in preparation for meeting with Kelly you can put questions or comments in there on any of the any of your benefits or retirement questions. So okay, so before we I think what we need to do Kelly is because The life insurance and long term care group benefit discussion is a session in of itself. Right? Let's tee up the next session to discuss how you can use these different types of products and benefits out there to solve or address the long term care concerns. Perfect, because there are definitely some different options that most people just aren't aware that they're available. So yeah, let's let's take some time to talk through that. Okay. All right. So, look for the next episode to be uploaded part two long term care, utilizing insurance products to solve this problem that's becoming more and more of an issue for families and people across the country. And thank you very much, Kelly. I know you're busy. I appreciate your time today. Well, good luck with your in laws, Jeff. Yeah, it's, you know what, though? I mean, that's, that's what you have to do. I mean, in life. You You just have to, you have to take care of those. And I think also with this pandemic issue and the nursing facilities, we just, we we just didn't want to do that. So it's just switch got to do so. Okay, so we'll be back shortly for another episode. In this concludes our our session today. Thank you very much.