Category Archives: Estate Planning

Last updated by at .

Planning For Your Elder Years

Posted on by

New Jersey Elder Planning Tips

Recent surveys among NJ elderly, find that their biggest concerns are:

1. Remaining independent in the home without intervention from others;

2. Maintaining good health and receiving adequate health care;

3. Having enough money for everyday needs and not outliving assets and income.

Pre-planning can help address these issues.  No other life event can be as devastating to an elderly person’s lifestyle, finances and security as needing long term care. It can drastically alter or eliminates the three principal lifestyle concerns above.  The majority of the American public does not plan for this crisis of needing elder care. The lack of planning also has an adverse effect on the older person’s family, with sacrifices made in time, money, and family lifestyles.  Due to changing demographics and potential changes in government funding, the current generation needs to plan for long term care before the elder years are upon them.

Here are some facts.

  • The population of the “very old,” – older than age 85 – is the fastest growing group in America. This population is at highest risk for needing care. (Statistical abstract of the United States,
    2008, population)
  • Medical science is preventing early sudden deaths, which means living longer with impaired health and greater risk of needing long term care.
  • The Alzheimer’s Association estimates the risk of Alzheimer’s or dementia beyond age 85 to be about 46% of
    that population.
  • It is estimated that 6 out of 10 people will need long-term care sometime during their lifetime.
  • Children moving far away from parents or parents moving away during retirement makes long distance care giving difficult or impossible.
  • Government programs— already stretched thin for long term care services— will experience even greater stress on
    available funds in the future.

One of the important things for planning is how to maintain your lifestyle as you age. You may be healthy enough to stay in your own home with help provided for the following activities of daily living:

  • maintaining a home
  • providing meals
  • supervision
  • companionship
  • transportation
  • shopping services

This type of care at home is non-medical and must be provided free of charge by family, friends, or volunteers or the care must be paid for out-of-pocket by the family. Government programs, in most cases, will not pay for this kind of care. It is estimated that 80% of all long term care is non-medical, with 90% of that care provided in the home.

Plan now how you will pay for care when it is needed. In evaluating your future income you may find it necessary to add some resources such as long term care insurance to pay for assisted living or nursing home costs. Long term care insurance must be purchased while you are younger and healthy. Failing health, stroke or other aging issues will not allow you to qualify for this insurance.  A reverse mortgage will also help pay for home care if staying in your home is an option.

Consider where you may want to live in your elder years. Many assisted living facilities offer complete care alternatives with a nursing home wing if needed. Senior retirement communities also offer many amenities with some including home care options.  Now is the time to do estate planning. A professional estate planner will give you direction on how best to protect your assets for future needs and for Medicaid planning.  Now is the time to create your trusts, will, medical directives in a living will and any other documents you want noted for future use. Gather insurance policies and bank records where they can be found by family members in case you are not able to get them yourself.

The process of long term care planning involves the following four
principles:

1. Knowledge and preparation are the keys to success.
2. Having funds to pay for care expands the choices for care
settings and providers.
3. Using professional help relieves stress, reduces conflict, and
saves time and money.
4. Success is assured through a written plan accepted by all
parties involved.

(The above excerpt is quoted from “The 4 Steps of Long Term Care Planning,” National Care Planning Council)

The National Care Planning Council’ s website — www.longtermcarelink.net — provides over 700 pages of information for long term care planning and lists services of professional care providers in estate planning, long term care insurance, reverse mortgage, home care and many other important long term care services.

The National Care Planning Council’ s book, “The 4 Steps of Long Term Care Planning,” provides information on what Medicaid and Medicare will cover as well as an overview of professional long term care service providers and how their services can help you create and execute your long term care plan. A check list of what to do to create a plan and forms for creating necessary paperwork are also included in the book.

Posted by: Frank Esposito, Vice President of Expert Home Care.  New Jersey’s Expert Home Care provides professional and reliable home health care and companion care for NJ elderly, helping them with their daily living activities since 1984. Please call us toll free at 800-848-2336 when you have home care related questions or need assistance for a loved one. Get a Free Home Care Assessment (a $375 value!) when you mention this post.

Working with an Elder Law Attorney

Posted on by

NJ Elder Law

What is an elder law attorney and when is it time to contact one?  Here are some things to consider:

What is Elder Law?
Elder Law is the legal practice of counseling and representing older persons and their representatives about the legal aspects of health and long term care planning, public benefits, surrogate decision making, older persons’ legal capacity, the conservation, disposition and administration of older persons’ estates and the implementation of their decisions concerning such matters, giving due consideration to the applicable tax consequences of the action, or the need for more sophisticated tax expertise.

What is a Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA)?
Any attorney can claim to have a specialty in elder law, but only Certified Elder Law Attorneys have met rigorous criteria and been reviewed favorably by five of their peers. These attorneys have been in practice for a minimum of five years, three of which have been focused on elder law. They have passed the regular bar exam, and a special one focused on elder legal issues. In addition, they must take continuing education courses to keep up with the latest changes in the law as it relates to elder issues.

Why should you consult a CELA?
For advice on estate planning, future planning, Medicare and Medicaid issues, end-of-life issues, choice-of-living-situation issues and planning for special-needs children.

What is an example of something a CELA could help a client with, that someone else might not be aware of?
In some states, if a grown child cared for a parent for at least two years, making institutionalization of that parent unnecessary, and lived in the same home as the parent, then that home may not be taken to pay for the adult’s nursing home costs. This is something of great significance to many families that a non-CELA may not be aware of.

Some tips for people dealing with elder issues:

  • Become educated about the situation. Come up with a long-term plan. Educating yourself in the issues will prevent you from being taken advantage of by someone pretending to be an expert, who is not.
  • Find an intelligent, qualified adviser, and don’t be afraid to pay him/her for their time.
  • Create a health care proxy which designates someone to make health-care decisions for you in case you can’t. The health care proxy can include elements of a living will, dealing with what kind of treatments you do or do not want.
  • Sign a durable power of attorney, which allows your spouse to protect your assets. This is the financial equivalent of a health care proxy. It’s better than putting your assets in a joint bank account, and you can specify what kinds of decisions the person can make for you. It is often used to protect the money of one spouse if the other goes to a nursing home.

Posted by: Frank Esposito, Vice President of Expert Home Care.  New Jersey’s Expert Home Care provides professional and reliable home health care and companion care for NJ seniors, helping them with their daily living activities since 1984. Please call us toll free at 800-848-2336 when you have elder care related questions or need assistance for a loved one. Get a Free Home Care Assessment (a $375 value!) when you mention this post.

New Jersey Elder Care Planning

Posted on by

New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

The Process of Long Term Care Planning by Thomas Day

The Seven Steps of the Planning Process

Understanding the natural progression of long-term care and the resources available to help can be an invaluable asset to a family or spouse who are currently providing care or someday in the future, may eventually have to provide help for a loved one. We call this process long term care planning. It involves:

Understanding the Process of Planning

Understanding Care Settings

Understanding Government Long-Term Care Programs

Knowing Who to Contact for Help

Creating Sources of Funding to Pay for Services

Using Strategies to Preserve Assets

Creating a Long Term Care Plan

New Jersey Elder Wealth Transition

Posted on by

New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values

Roy Williams and Vic Preisser. Preparing Heirs: Five Steps to a Successful Transition of Family Wealth and Values. Robert D. Reed Publishers, San Francisco, CA. 2003.

If you have worked hard to accumulate wealth, you probably want to make sure your heirs don’t lose control of it. Preparing Heirs gives families the tools to successfully transfer wealth from one generation to the next.

The authors, both of whom are family coaches with many years of experience counseling wealthy families, interviewed thousands of families and discovered that 70 percent of wealth transfers fail. Preparing Heirs explains the techniques that worked for the 30 percent of families that successfully “transitioned” wealth.

According to the authors, the key to a successful transition of wealth is family involvement. “The most important single issue that undermines successful transfers of wealth is the breakdown of trust and communications within the family unit,” they write. Using handy checklists, Preparing Heirs discusses how to assess a wealth transition plan, how to fix deficiencies in the plan, how to prepare heirs, and how heirs can prepare themselves.

For mid-size and large estates, this book offers valuable advice on successfully transferring wealth to the next generation and beyond.

5 Questions to Ask Your Financial Planner

Posted on by

1. How have my investments actually performed? It’s scary to watch the Dow drop by more than 700 points in one day. But how does that compare with your own investments? “To some extent, everyone is seeing market losses right now,” says John Gannon, senior vice president of investor education for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). “But it’s really an important time to open your account statements and take a look at them and benchmark your performance.”

Ask your financial adviser to compare the performance of your investments to relevant indexes or to other funds with similar investing strategies — focusing on the past few months and years, not the day-to-day gyrations.

Also ask about the performance of your overall portfolio, focusing on the past one, three and five years. “I really feel that no financial-planning client or investment advisory client should be doing as badly as the markets; that is, if the broad market is down 25%, then they should be down no more than 20% and probably less,” says Bob Veres, publisher of Inside Information, a well-respected newsletter for financial planners.

2. How do my investments match my time frame and goals? One of the biggest benefits of working with a financial planner is that he or she should pick investments within the context of your overall financial plan — dividing your savings into several sections and selecting the investments for each based on your time frame and goals.

And ask about the adviser’s strategy for meeting your medium-term goals.

3. What adjustments are you making because of this market? “A good adviser will have put a plan in place that expects horrible times in the markets,” says Daniel Moisand, a certified financial planner in Melbourne, Fla., and chairman of the Certified Financial Planner Board’s disciplinary and ethics commission.

The adviser shouldn’t make rash decisions during a market downturn, especially if you’ve been well-diversified and your investments match your time frame and goals. “Any adviser who says you should sell everything during the capitulation period of a bear market is not somebody I would want to work with,” Veres says.

4. How much am I paying for guarantees? Some “advisers” may offer to eliminate future worries by selling a product promising big guarantees. “I would be highly skeptical of any product pitches that purport to have severed the relationship between risk and reward,” says Moisand.

5. How do you plan to keep me updated and answer questions? You can learn a lot about your financial planner during this crisis — not just how he or she manages your investments, but how well the adviser explains the situation and what action you should take, answers your questions and makes you feel more comfortable. “This is probably the time when you need your financial professional more than at any other time,” says Gannon.

And your adviser should be giving you the attention you deserve now.

If you haven’t been satisfied with your planner’s performance, see In Search of Good Advice for help finding a new one.

http://kiplinger.com/columns/ask/archive/2008/q1027.htm