Your clients should eat properly, exercise, write thank you notes and buy adequate long-term care insurance when they're young and healthy.
Sometimes, they don't. What if Jane Doe, a successful 40-year-old lawyer, walks in and already has severe kidney disease? Can you offer her any options for planning for long-term care costs?
Kim Beil, a vice president at Janney Montgomery Scott, says you can, by considering options based on savings arrangements or deferred annuities.
What it means: It's important to have ideas about how to help the client in front of you, as well as the hypothetical client who does everything right.
The ideal: Beil, who is head of insured and cash solutions at Janney, holds the certified financial planner (CFP) and certification for long-term care (CLTC) designations.
Beil said in an email interview that advisors should encourage clients to apply for medically underwritten long-term care planning products, such as stand-alone long-term care insurance, by the time they're around 55.
"If you wait too long, the premiums could significantly increase," Beil said.
Too often, she said, clients think about long-term care planning when they're between 60 and 65 and already have health conditions that make getting through underwriting difficult.
Jane Doe: What can you tell a relatively young client who already has a serious chronic condition?
Beil said one strategy to consider is looking hard for stand-alone long-term care insurance.
Someone with a serious health problem will have a hard time getting that at a reasonable price, she said.
