A Perfect Storm: A situation that is bad or mismanaged in every way. And it’s upon us. It has been developing for decades, going back to the Special Committee on Aging and Pepper Commission in August of 1989.  But today, we find the state of long-term care and the insurance that pays for custodial care in a state of disarray, with dozens of states attempting to design their own payment systems as Medicaid budgets continue to expand. A perfect storm involves a number of circumstances that merge simultaneously. We have escalating care costs, a shortage of trained caregivers, and the fo ..read more

Art or science? A bit of both. And as medical protocols, outcomes and technology evolve, it changes. Mortality or Morbidity Today, underwriting mortality, a calculation of when you will die, for life insurance can be very precise. It has been around for centuries. The first known policies date back to 1583 in England. And life insurance is definitive. We are all going to die. Given where one was born, family health history, lifestyle and other factors, actuaries and underwriters can be pretty predictive about mortality. I will call this science, given all the data available. However, underwri ..read more

Did you ever think that one day, the marriage you committed to decades ago would be over? Or that you would find your spouse of forty years dead on the floor in his man cave?  That was my experience. It happened the morning we were signing the contract to remodel the house. Gone was the guy who was going to manage the remodel project. Gone was the partnership I’d counted on in sickness and in health. And long-term care. I was suddenly single Finding oneself suddenly single can be the result of death or divorce. In my situation, it was death. Because of my work, we had planned for long-te ..read more

The term “self-insuring” is a pet peeve of mine. It is a term that I find particularly annoying every time I hear it. Why? It’s a misnomer. And misleading. There is no such thing as self-insuring. One of the principles of modern insurance is pooling funds from the many to pay for the losses of the few. There is no “self” in insurance. In my view, you want to participate in huge pools of healthy policyholders. Insurance involves the transfer of risk. It is a way to protect oneself from financial loss. In exchange for a fee, one party agrees to compensate another in the event of a loss.  W ..read more

Many predict that we are on the precipice of a renaissance in long-term care. Factors that drive this prediction include the hike in interest rates, states designing their own public programs based on taxing employees and employers, demographic shift to an older population, post-COVID focus on health and wellness and technology advances. When we started in this insurance market segment in the early 2000s, about 140 companies offered long-term care insurance products. Today, there are about a dozen. Six offering traditional standalone products. And six offering some form of hybrid products – a ..read more

It’s that lovely time of year when leaves change and we begin planning for the holidays starting with Halloween. Any idea how much money Americans spend on ghouls and goblins? In 2021 it was $10.1 billion! Scary for sure. But even more so is aging and falling. Consider that every year 3,000,000 older adults end up in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to a fall. That’s about 25% of Americans aged 65. Over 800,000 are hospitalized with injuries that range from hip fractures to head injuries. Egad. By the time we’re age 70 the prevalence of traumatic falls rises to nearly 45%. What c ..read more

Nicole Gurley explains the three steps she uses to help you find the best solution to plan for long-term care expenses. Have more questions? Click here to contact Nicole ..read more

Some suggest we may be heading for the golden age of long-term care insurance. I hope so.  In 2002 when I started in this specialized insurance niche the industry reported $1.5 billion in new standalone premiums. A decade later the premiums had dropped to $600 million. Now the latest numbers for 2021 indicate total standalone premiums dropped again to $200 million. And that includes sales in Washington State where the incentive to buy private insurance and avoid a payroll tax was huge.  Tens of thousands bought. But most of those that we helped bought the cheapest policy offered bef ..read more

Health care or Medicare is very different from long-term care. Why? Health care and Medicare are designed as curative or rehabilitative programs. Not so for long-term care which is custodial care. Custodial care helps you live as you are now. It is not designed to improve or correct a medical condition. People often think long-term care is only care provided in a nursing home. Today, most long-term care services are provided in one’s own home. Other venues include an adult day care facility, assisted living community, nursing home or hospice facility. Here is a brief description of each venue ..read more

Do you know the six Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)? What if you couldn’t complete two or more of them? Have questions? Click here to contact Nicole Gurley ..read more