If retirement planning is among the services you offer clients, chances are you use some kind of financial planning software. As many useful tools as these software platforms provide to help coordinate the various aspects of a retirement plan, there's one that financial professionals tend to underutilize or even avoid altogether: the health care or long-term care module.
"A financial professional can do a great job with retirement, income, tax and estate preservation for a client. But when it comes time to click on the tab for planning for a catastrophic health care or long-term care event, they don't always go there," said Pat Foley, CLU, ChFC, president, Individual Life and Financial Services, OneAmerica companies.
But go there financial professionals must, he said. "They need to talk with their clients about the number one risk to their retirement nest egg—a catastrophic health issue that requires extended long-term care. And they need a plan for managing that risk."
More specifically, clients need help from financial professionals to develop a clearly articulated long-term care plan, just as they need help with a retirement, tax, estate or financial plan. According to Foley, the three overriding goals with long-term care planning are:
- Protect the retirement nest egg from depletion;
- Give clients the means to self-determine how and where they receive care
- Discuss with loved ones a clear idea of their potential caregiving roles, if any, should the need arise
With elements of wealth protection, tax planning, retirement and income planning, a long-term care plan is merely an extension of—and an extra layer of protection around—the other types of plans a financial professional puts in place on a client's behalf.
"There's value in certainty for clients, especially as they approach retirement," said Dennis Martin, FSA, FCIA, MAAA, vice president, senior business & product development officer, OneAmerica companies. "As a client, I don't want to wonder if I'm going to have any assets left to live on 20 years from now."
A formal, well-articulated LTC plan removes that uncertainty from the equation. Here are the basic steps to devising one:
STEP 1: Raise the issue tactfully and raise it again until the client is ready to mobilize: As averse as many clients are to discussing their vulnerability to a health care crisis and subsequent long-term care need, it's incumbent on the financial professionals to bring the subject up, given the havoc a sustained care need can wreak on retirement assets.
"'No' doesn't mean, 'No, never,' it means 'No, not right now.' So you should make a point to revisit long-term care planning with the client, to let them know this is a major issue," said Michelle Prather, regional marketing director, Care Solutions.
STEP 2: Discuss the realities and the options available to address them:
The process of developing a long-term care plan starts with a conversation—or more likely, a series of conversations—around subjects that aren't always easy to discuss, including the likelihood a person will need some form of care and the cost of that care. A 2015 report from HealthView Services estimates that a healthy 65-year-old couple retiring in 2015 will pay an average of about $395,000 in lifetime retirement health care costs. For a 55-year-old couple retiring in 10 years, that figure rises to about $464,000. The report also notes that the U.S. Department of the Actuary projects health care inflation remaining at a lofty 6 percent for the next decade.
