“Live every day to the fullest, because you aren’t guaranteed tomorrow.”
“You can’t take it with you.”
“Dream as if you’ll live forever; live as if you’ll die today.”
Ever heard any of these quotes? I enjoy reading inspirational quotes but find myself being a planner and not leaving things to chance. I recently read a white paper from Nationwide titled, “Rethinking Retirement: Why you Need to Plan with Longevity in Mind” and it really resonated with me.
Angie Hughes
LTCi Marketing Manager
800.541.6705
It highlights six areas that your clients should be thinking about as they go from accumulating to looking forward to retirement. It does a great job of breaking down complex issues like social security, long-term care expenses, HSA accounts to conversations with spouses.
As I read through the article, it gave me pause to think about the approach to long-term care planning. Most of us believe that it is important but how often do we bring up the conversation with our clients and our friends? I feel like we may overcomplicate what we really need to keep simple. What if you took the matter of fact approach: Are you planning to live a long life? Are you planning to not outlive your retirement income? If that’s the case, then maybe we should talk about long-term care planning. Not because you are going to the nursing home or want to plan for that, but longevity can impact your future income and where it will be spent. If healthcare technology is moving at lightning speed and the Medicare Board is optimistic that future improvements might increase efficiency and decrease costs then it would be safe to assume that diseases and conditions that aren’t curable or treatable today, may be handled routinely in the future.
I think about some of the calls and emails I get daily and most of the time it is a prospect that waited too long, has too many health conditions and is uninsurable. What if we started a long-term care conversation when clients roll into their 50’s? This is critical for many reasons. Their health is usually much better which means an approval is more likely and premiums will be lower. It allows them the grace period to “think it over” without there being some time constraint on a health condition, new age restrictions and lots of other outside factors that are changing rapidly due to COVID-19. It’s like planting a garden, you have to give the seed some TLC before it bears fruit.
If you take the time to read the attached white paper, I hope that you too see how simple things can be incorporated into your conversations with your clients that can get them to start thinking about long-term care planning. As always, I’d love to help build your practice by adding LTC to your insurance solutions. If you want to visit with me about how we can help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
