America is set to hit a new historical milestone.
For the first time ever in the United States, the elderly are projected to outnumber children. In 2035, people aged 65 and over are expected to reach 78.0 million, while children under age 18 will number 76.7 million.
As our country’s elderly population grows, so does the need to pay for long-term care services. These services, however, are prohibitively costly for many, and can pose insurmountable financial hardships for many elderly Americans and the adult children who often become responsible for caring for their aging family members.
The Problem with Long-Term Care in the U.S.
Unfortunately, unlike many other developed nations, such as the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, the U.S. has never created a broad public program covering long-term care.
Medicare covers a wide array of medical needs but does not pay for independent or assisted living. This leaves many seniors and children caring for their aging parents with the heavy financial burden of long-term care services.
And with the estimated average annual cost of assisted living and out-of-pocket medical expenses set to hit $62,000, long-term care costs can quickly exhaust a senior’s personal savings.
Thankfully, if you have an aging parent in need of long-term care, there is a safe solution — a life settlement.
How Life Settlements Help Ease the Financial Burden of Long-Term Care
Life settlements are becoming increasingly looked at as an option for funding long-term care expenses. A life settlement is a transaction in which the owner of a life insurance policy sells the policy to a licensed institutional buyer, via a life settlement broker, for a lump sum greater than the cash surrender value of the policy.
Life settlement brokers are able to receive fair market value for your policy by shopping the policy to several institutional buyers, creating a competitive marketplace. Once an agreement on price is reached, a lump sum of cash is paid to the policy owner. The policy owner has complete discretion on how to spend the funds. Unsurprisingly, many choose to put them toward long-term care needs, alleviating the financial pressure many adult children face in caring for their aging parents.
When conducting a life settlement, it’s absolutely imperative that the senior be represented by a fiduciary (someone who is legally obligated to look out for their client’s best interest). There are many life settlement companies that advertise directly to seniors in an attempt to remove the fiduciary from the transaction. Though this benefits the financial interests of the company in question, it puts seniors at grave risk for not getting the fair market value for their policy.
At Ashar Group, we have created our business model with the best interests of seniors in mind. We have built our name and reputation on acting with integrity and have earned an impeccable track record of trust with fiduciaries, advisors, and their senior clients. Though a life settlement isn’t right for everyone, Ashar Group can be a part of the process to determine whether a life settlement is a sound option for the policyholder in question.
For more information on how the life settlement process works, and whether it makes sense for your client, give us a call or take our 7-question policy value quiz. Our team of experts is dedicated to asking and answering the crucial questions that will help you make an informed, confident decision.