LONG TERM CARE SOLUTIONS

• Rely on Family. For some people, this is a real solution. They have actually sat down with their family and determined who Mom or Dad will live with, and they even set up a wing in the house for this possibility. However, for most people this happens as a result of not having a plan. Most people crisis-manage this situation and they have no choice but to have Mom or Dad move into their busy lives. In fact, in most situations, the last thing Mom or Dad would ever want to do is move in with their kids. So for most of us, this is not really a solution.
  
  
• Rely on Medicaid. Relying on Medicaid means that either you’ve gone through all your money or you didn’t have any money to begin with. For someone who has accumulated assets, and wants to protect those assets, Medicaid may be their only solution, and then they are not a candidate for Long Term Care Insurance.
  
  
• Remain Self-Insured. Self-insuring is another way of saying “I will pay for it myself, if it happens.” Every single person who owns Long Term Care Insurance can afford to self-insure. Some could self-insure for 3 years, others for 10, and some can even do it for 30 years; it all depends on their assets. In fact, if a person, can’t afford to self-insure for some period of time, then they can’t afford to buy LTCI. While self-insuring is a viable solution to the Long Term Care problem, a better solution is to transfer some of the risk to LTCI.
  
  
• Transfer the Risk to LTCI. Without LTCI, all of the risk is on you if you become disabled, it does not have to be black and white: ‘Buy Long Term Care’ or ‘Don’t Buy Long Term Care’. The better question is, how much risk do you want to keep on yourself and how much risk to you want to transfer to the insurance company? After all, you have been transferring risk your whole life through the use of various insurances. Just because you have accumulated assets does not mean that you are all of a sudden going to drop your home owner’s policy, auto insurance and health insurance. Although you may be able to pay out of pocket for some of these things, you are still transferring the risks to the insurance companies.