Joe Stamps Director of Life and LTC Sales
	Retirement Income Security

The Greatest Threat to Retirement Income Security

How your clients prepare for the possibility of long-term care directly impacts the security of their entire investment portfolio and can pose a potential threat to their retirement income. Even if they are still saving for retirement, you should help them consider the threat of long-term care expenses now.

In addition to their home, a typical portfolio consists of investments for growth and income; life insurance to efficiently provide for their heirs; and assets reserved for financial emergencies, including medical or long-term care costs.

Often by simply repositioning the cash reserves designated for an emergency fund into a combination life/LTC policy such as Moneyguard, you immediately increase the protection for the rest of their portfolio. The challenge of costs associated with long-term care are mitigated, and the emergency fund remains intact. One simple solution – it’s there if you need it for long term care, and you can get it back for other emergencies in light of the guaranteed return-of-premium feature.

If you need long-term care
Moneyguard and other hybrid policies can, in many cases, provide you with up to four times the dollars you can use to be reimbursed for long-term care costs, significantly increasing your capacity to self-insure.

If you need it back
Many contracts provide either a money-back guarantee on policies funded with single premiums, or a growing cash value that will return most, if not all, of your original single premium payment any time you request it. Some will return even more.

If you never need long-term care
These policies provide not only income tax-free long-term care reimbursements but also efficiently pass any unused portion income tax-free to your beneficiaries through a death benefit.

Because 60% of Americans age 65 or older today will need some form of long-term care, it should be your duty as an advisor to discuss this important issue with each and every client.

So what are their options?
The cost for long-term care continues to rise. In 2008, the average national annual cost of nursing home care was $75,000. For an assisted living facility, the average cost jumped to $35,520 a year. In some areas, these costs can be much higher. This can present a real financial challenge to even the most affluent Americans. In fact, it can be the greatest threat to retirement income security.

For relatively affluent people who are attempting to set aside money for the contingency of long-term care, there is a much better way.

Help your clients get more for their long-term-care dollar – free up other assets
Leverage assets they’ve set aside for long-term care. Why allocate more than they need to for long-term care costs when their assets can work three, four, even five times harder for them? This allows them to free up additional assets targeted for long-term care because they will no longer be needed for that purpose.

Long-term care challenges are considerable – many people do nothing to address the need.

Remember, if they do not have a plan, they’re self-insuring.