Last week’s Fridays with Fisher post stirred up a hornet’s nest. My little rant was simply based on the value of lifetime benefits.
Well, I am not backing off of my position that lifetime benefits are worthwhile particularly when you have a family with the experience of longevity and/or an long haul condition like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.
Someone who I hold in the highest regard always says, “you can’t talk about solutions until people know they have a problem”.
That is the case with long term care. Most people deny that they will experience the situation AND when they do, they believe that they’ll have an average or shorter event. If you want average, you can easily locate those numbers with a simple Google search.
Here is the issue with using the average. Which one of us will be average?
In order to have an average, you need a boatload of data points. Some will be high; some will be low; and a majority will not be close to the average.
So – if you are painting a picture that average is okay, you might want to reconsider things. AVERAGE IS NOT OKAY!
Average is a data point.
At OneAmerica Financial, long term care insurance solutions are designed in order to accommodate a variety of consumer needs and wants.
From a short duration strategy lasting 2 years to an unlimited duration of benefits, a plan can be designed to align with consumer needs and wants.
I remember early in my career wholesaling linked-benefits LTC products. This was a time where I still had hair so close to 20 years ago. My former company would offer several plan duration solutions, but almost every case written was for 72 months of benefits.
Why? Because that is what was best for the carrier. Because the actuaries priced that plan design to be most attractive. Because it is what we told advisors and agents to do.
First, we need to have the bold conversation and discuss protecting our client’s families and their incomes during retirement from their own health.
Next, we need to ask uncomfortable questions and find out where our clients’ concerns truly lie.
Finally, building and funding their solution has to be without bias. Our clients’ lead us to their solutions. No more cookie cutter solutions. No more average is okay. No more of the bias that exists.
And, for crying out loud, even if we don’t (or can’t) offer an insurance-based solution to help address their long term care exposure, at least make sure that they develop a plan, put that plan in writing, and communicate that plan with their family.
There are plenty of tools available to help that planning discussion – pieces like:
Step by Step Guide to Receiving Long Term Care (consumer approved)
Care Planning Worksheet (consumer approved)
The long and the short of this is that people need to plan. Agents and advisors need to include long-term care in their planning. And, the industry has to stop bickering about why they believe that their product is the “cat’s meow”.
Above all, we need to simply ask the question – what’s your plan and how will you pay?
Want funding ideas?
You can contact me or one of my internal sales partners – Justin Fox at (844) 658-3725 & justinfox.isp@oneamerica.com or Nick Angelov at (844) 623-4251 & nick.angelov@oneamerica.com
Fridays with Fisher 