Don Dirren outlines key considerations concerning long-term care with life insurance
Insurance expert Don Dirren offers a professional look at the facts surrounding long-term care with life insurance.
A licensed financial advisor for more than 30 years, Don Dirren focuses on retirement planning and educating those seeking to protect, preserve, and pass on their wealth. An expert in insurance, Dirren outlines several important factors to take into consideration when purchasing life insurance with the option for long-term care coverage.
“Often I’m asked, ‘Should I purchase life insurance with long-term care coverage?'” reveals Dirren, an experienced financial advisor from Phoenix, Arizona.
Long-term care insurance, he goes on to explain, is an insurance product that will assist in paying for most of the costs tied to long-term care that aren’t included with—or covered by—standard health insurance, Medicaid, or Medicare.
According to Don Dirren, whether an individual needs, or should rely upon, long-term care coverage, depends on a number of factors. There are, he says, several considerations which should be made. “For example,” Dirren remarks, “depending upon how much an individual is withdrawing, or plans to withdraw, from their savings every year, especially later in life, it may make more financial sense to go without long-term care with life insurance, as long as a plan is in place to deal with any possible expenses tied to such an eventuality.”
There’s also the unpredictability of long-term care – another important consideration according to the expert. “While the figures vary depending on a variety of factors, around 50 percent of those who need long-term care only rely on it for less than 12 months,” reveals Dirren, “and fewer than 15 percent rely on such care for more than five years, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.”
Don Dirren recently spoke about life insurance products for seniors and provided an expert look at some of the best life insurance products available. “Life insurance products for seniors vary wildly, so it’s vital that people choose the policy that’s right for them,” said Dirren.
Dirren ultimately pointed toward fixed indexed universal and guaranteed universal life insurance for seniors, being permanent and flexible, and representing a no-risk form of investment for many.
The expert also briefly discussed long-term care insurance, but was quick to highlight the fact that the cost of this type of coverage is rising. “A hybrid option, then,” he suggested, “may be a better proposition, combining two types of coverage – chiefly long-term care and one other form of life insurance.”
Hybrid life and long-term care coverage is available as a single payment, and often much more cost-effective premium than traditional long-term care insurance, according to Don Dirren.
“With hybrid life and long-term care coverage, an individual’s death benefit amount is available tax-free for care as necessary,” he adds, wrapping up, “either paying for long-term care in later life if needed, or otherwise received tax-free by beneficiaries when the policyholder passes away.”