Fear, Confusion Hold Back Long-Term Care Planning: OneAmerica

The participants also listed other obstacles that might be easier for an advisor, agent or another financial professional to address:

• Unwilling to leave home: 31%
• Lack of information about care options: 15%
• Too many long-term care options to consider: 11%
• Do not know where to look for information: 10%

The results suggest that financial professionals might be able to get some consumers' attention simply by emphasizing that they can help clients plan to stay in their own homes, rather than implying that long-term care planning means nursing home care planning.

The CLTC Survey

The new OneAmerica survey has come out a few weeks after a survey of 400 family caregivers that was sponsored by Certification for Long-Term Care, an LTC planning education program, and Home Instead and Homethrive.

CLTC found that, although 47% of the family caregivers it surveyed had planned for their own long-term care needs, 17% had not done any planning. About 29% of the non-planners said the topic of their own care was "too hard to think about."

About 33% of all of the caregivers who participated in that survey said they might talk to a financial planner to prepare for retirement, and 33% said they might buy long-term care insurance.

About 38% of the caregivers who had used paid care for their loved ones said they had talked to a financial planner, and 38% said they had bought long-term care insurance.

CLTC noted that survey participants' reports of owning long-term care insurance may be inaccurate because analyses of general population surveys have shown that the percentage of Americans who say they have long-term care insurance tends to be much higher than the percentage of Americans who actually own long-term care insurance.