Author: Laura Pennington

More people today recognize the potential impact of long-term care because most children of baby boomers have experienced it first hand by helping their loved ones with medical issues associated with aging.

However, these children should also be careful to incorporate potential planning sources for long term care in their own estate plan. The Genworth Cost of Care Survey in 2018 found that a private nursing home’s average cost will run your over $100,000 per year.

Given that the National Care Planning Council says that the average stay in a nursing home is 835 days, you need to be prepared for how expensive this could be if you were to have one long term care event. Considering that the US Department of Health and Human Services says that 7 out of 10 people will require some form of long-term care in their lifetimes, you need to be thinking about whether or not you can afford to self-fund.

Those who have taken no other action to prepare for long term care, such as consulting with an estate planning attorney about Medicaid or purchasing a long-term care insurance policy, are essentially set up to fund their own long-term care if it were needed.       

If you’re not sure what your next step is in crafting a Medicaid plan, you don’t have to do it alone. Sitting down with a lawyer can present you with options and give you a set of next steps.

Chronic illness is much more common than most people anticipate. There’s a good chance that it has already touched your life in some way. If your loved one is living with some type of chronic disease like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis, you already should be aware of the fact that your estate planning should reflect these additional challenges.

According to reports, over 130 million Americans are already living with chronic illness, and that number will increase to 157 million by 2020. A quarter of people between the ages of 65 and 74 have already had their lives affected by chronic illness, so the impact of chronic disease is significant.

Estate planning documents for those who have chronic illness are imperative. If your loved one is already living with at least one chronic illness, you will the need the same estate planning documents that most people use as the cornerstone of their estate plan.

Having a partnership with an experienced estate planning attorney is important, because if the chronic illness has already advanced significantly, it could impede the loved one’s ability to understand and sign these legal documents.

Some of the most common estate planning documents important for someone with a chronic illness include, HIPAA releases, a living will, a health care proxy, an order for life sustaining treatment and a financial power of attorney. Schedule a consultation with an estate planning attorney today to learn more.     

The decision that you make to place a loved one in a nursing home can be a complicated one, and it probably required a lot of research and asking of questions on your part to determine that right facility. Unfortunately, elder neglect and abuse in nursing homes across the United States is not regularly reported by health care workers, according to a recent government watchdog report.

It is a federal requirement for those health care workers who become aware of elder abuse to report it as soon as possible, but the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the Inspector General found that many nursing homes across the country did not report elder abuse in about one of five potential cases.

It is expected that the elder population will increase significantly by 2050, reaching a total of 84 million people. Sadly, in 2008 a report found that one out of every 10 elderly individuals reported some form of neglect in the previous year.

Another form of elder abuse is known as financial abuse. Financial abuse can occur when someone attempts to take advantage of an elderly person by trying to update their will or making other edits to their existing estate planning documents. This can often come up in the context of an estate planning lawsuit or dispute after the fact. Being involved with your loved one’s life can help you identify situations in which he or she could be accidentally exposed to elder abuse or neglect.

Getting the support of an experienced attorney to create documents, to protect your loved one in advance can help to minimize the chances of this financial and elder abuse.     

Make sure you have documents set up to allow your trusted family members or loved ones to make decisions on your behalf- an estate planning attorney can help you put together power of attorney documents. These can help reduce the chances of elder financial abuse.

Having an estate plan is an important part of your overall financial picture, especially if you’re a parent. A recent study found that plenty of parents are missing key components of the protective documents they could use in order to outline a future for themselves and their children.

Having a child is a big milestone in your life, but it also calls on you to think bigger about how you’ll protect that child if something happens to you. A will is the most basic of estate planning documents, since it allows you to determine who will be the minor guardian if something happens to you and your spouse in addition to outlining where your assets will go.

If you have children, you get to have a say in who will be their guardian. Most parents don’t want this process left up to the courts. You can choose who you want to step into this important role based on what is best for your family rather than what the court deems appropriate.

Sitting down with your spouse or the other parent to discuss this all-important role is recommended. Even if you are separated or divorced, there are important considerations in choosing a person who will be active in your child’s life if you are no longer around.

Finally, the person you choose to serve as the guardian for your minor should be aware of this fact and fine with serving in this way. Even if you believe someone would be the perfect fit to take care of your children if you’re no longer around, you need to make sure they are comfortable serving in such a role, too.

Schedule a meeting with NJ estate planning lawyer if you’re missing a will, power of attorney, or other documents.

Too many people are under the impression that asset protection planning is only relevant for the very rich who want to downsize their tax bill. The truth is that every family benefits from asset protection because this is a legal method of arranging your assets in a manner to protect them from future attacks like those from creditors or predators.

When done early, asset protection planning can be a firm shield against challenges and problems. Asset protection planning can also help with other aspects of your estate plan.

Benefits of asset protection planning extend far beyond the tax advantages and can include benefits from Medicaid planning, protecting money from adult children who may be irresponsible and need additional structure and control for the money flow, planning for a child with special needs, and protecting money from your own future creditors.

Far too many people who overlook all of these different aspects of asset protection planning could expose themselves and their loved ones to unnecessary risks that could have been prevented with a little bit of planning structured by an experienced and knowledgeable estate planning lawyer.

If you are new to the concept of asset protection planning and are not sure how this fits into your overall estate planning picture, schedule a consultation today to sit down with a lawyer and discuss some of the ways that your assets could be threatened.     

Many people already know that the cost of nursing home or long term care in their older ages can be extremely high. The average cost of a nursing home in the United States can easily go above $70,000 a year, and according to a Georgetown University Medical Center study, this has risen even faster than the cost of overall medical care in some states.

The cost of putting a family member in a nursing home can be a significant financial burden even for those Americans who have set aside necessary retirement funds. But this can be a crushing and devastating challenge for those who have not set aside the appropriate money.

The expense of nursing home care is a particular concern for those people who do not have Medicaid coverage or long term care insurance. Annual out of pocket expenditures for a nursing home can go well beyond $70,000, and in certain states can be much higher. For a person who is not classified as qualified for Medicaid or doesn’t have LTC insurance, this financial burden can put pressure on loved ones as well.

According to the study, for-profit nursing home chains were the least expensive whereas non-profit were the most expensive. For-profit and non-profit facilities operated independently had similar costs. While the majority of Americans are eligible for Medicare at age 65, this doesn’t cover many important long term care costs. You need to have a long term care strategy set aside and partner with an experienced and knowledgeable estate planning attorney to discuss how this could affect your future.     

As part of your overall retirement plan, you’re probably counting on your Social Security benefits. But what happens if you miscalculate and end up taking the benefits too early? Couldn’t this short term boost help you if you’ve falling short in other retirement vehicles?

A new study from United Income says that a couple electing for Social Security benefits too early could lose up to $111,000 over the course of their retirement. Given that people are living longer, deciding when to start receiving benefits is an important consideration that could have big impacts on your golden years.

The study found that only a very small portion of retirees-4 percent- took their government retirement benefits at the ideal point in time. To determine that optimal age, there are numerous factors that must be taken into account, including future retirement costs, being single vs. married, life expectancy, other sources of income, and whether or not the person intends to continue working.

Many retirees would get a big bump in their overall benefits if they waited until age 70 to claim, according to the study’s findings. Very few retirees are in a better position by taking these benefits prior to age 64.

Calculating the best age to claim SS benefits is a challenge for plenty of people. Thinking ahead about your retirement, however, helps you have an overall plan for accomplishing your goals in your own life and passing on your remaining assets to your loved ones, too. This can include working with professionals like an estate planning lawyer.

If you’re interested in the big picture, set aside time to talk to your CPA or other financial professional, your insurance specialist, your investment broker, and your estate planning lawyer so that you have considered the impacts of your accounts across the board.

In your estate, a fiduciary has important legal responsibilities that must be addressed with the utmost level of care. Finding the right fiduciary is extremely important for protecting your interests and wishes.

A fiduciary has to provide the highest level and standard of care, not just because this is required by the law, but because the person establishing a fiduciary in a position of trust needs loyalty and honesty.

Fiduciaries might play multiple roles in a person’s life and estate. Common examples of people who serve as fiduciaries are bankers, attorneys, accountants, financial advisers, real estate agents, and business advisers. They must act in the best interests of the beneficiaries of a trust or estate.

A fiduciary can include a trustee, a guardian for your minor children, a personal representative or executor, or a surrogate/healthcare agent. Your lawyer also has some level of fiduciary responsibility in managing or helping with your affairs, too.

Since people in all of these roles can have a significant impact on your life or on the management of your estate, it is key to feel confident with your choice.

Most people want their estate to be transferred as painlessly as possible for their heirs. Choosing the right fiduciary is part of that conversation. Since your heirs might need to interact with the fiduciary like a trustee on a regular basis, you want someone that you not only trust but who can easily work with your loved ones and maintain open lines of communication and trust.  

A family business is something that goes far beyond a profit-generating venture. For you and your loved ones, it’s a source of pride and family connection. Which is why it’s important to make sure that proper succession planning has been incorporated in your long-term view of the company.

Did you know that there are three major reasons why family businesses fail? Two of them are directly related to how much forethought you put into the process of planning ahead. One is inadequate estate planning, which has ripple effects not just for your heirs but also for your company, and the other is lack of funds in place to pay estate taxes.

The third major issue affecting the future of a family business is the failure to properly prepare for the generational transition in the company, including who will take over key roles in the business.

While there are probably a lot of moving parts with your company and plenty of them that only you or your key employees are aware of, exit and estate planning might mean going outside of the office and getting the help of dedicated professionals.

This can mean working with an exit and succession planning professional, a CPA, a tax lawyer, and more. In most cases, your family business will have strong personal ties to your individual estate planning, and therefore all your tools should be created with both issues in the back of your mind. They must work together while you’re still part of the business and when you leave for maximum benefits.

Not all lawyers are created equal, and finding someone to help you with your needs or individual case requires doing a little digging into the lawyer’s experience and past. All attorneys have a responsibility to provide competent client representation. This means thoroughness, legal skill, and the preparation and research involved in connecting a client’s needs with legal avenues and strategies.

A client must feel confident in the competency in the practice area of estate planning, elder law, asset protection planning, or business succession planning. Some attorneys will have more experience than others in crafting plans for specific client needs; make sure you ask a potential lawyer about how frequently they have represented clients in similar situations.

An attorney should also be prepared to turn down a case if he or she is not familiar with that area of the law and does not have the resources to properly help the client as necessary. A referral to another attorney or consultation with a different lawyer can help to ensure the client gets the support and resources needed.

An attorney should be familiar with the basic tenets of estate planning, but should also be involved enough with this practice area to remain aware of updates to laws and emerging strategies or technologies that assist clients with accomplishing their goals of protection, privacy, tax minimization, and more.

One of the most important things to remember when hiring an estate planning attorney is how well they understand your needs and put together a strategy based on what’s best for you. Speaking with a lawyer in an initial consultation is your chance to get questions answered and determine the course of action most aligned with your needs.

Any company with whom you have an online account probably has their own rules about how you can or can’t close or transfer on your account after you pass away. However, you might also wish to back up your plans for such a site in your own estate planning documents, too. How you list these is important for how the accounts will be handled.

In the event you want other people to have access to your online accounts once you’re no longer around, make sure you use the right language in your estate planning documents to reference lawful consent. This enables your account details to be properly disclosed to the people you choose.

Using a trust can help with this, since many modern trust documents include language authorizing the release of digital account details. You can talk with your estate planning lawyer about creating a digital access map so that all your online accounts are consolidated easily and have the relevant passwords stored there, too.

This process begins by you creating an inventory of all your important online accounts and which of these are password restricted. These could include:

• The computer itself
• Social media accounts
• Online photo storage accounts
• Email accounts
• Bank and brokerage accounts
• Online storage
• Online electronic assistants and devices
• Retail stores with your credit card information stored for easy purchase

It might take some time to pull together this list as people are living more complicated digital lives than ever before.

When deciding what to pass on to your loved ones and heirs, proper titling is key to your wishes being followed in the manner you intend. Remember that some assets fall outside what is accomplished in probate, such as your life insurance policy. Regardless of what you state in your will, those wishes are overridden by the documents you’ve filed with the insurance company.

This makes it key to schedule an annual checkup in your calendar so you can verify that your intended beneficiaries are properly outlined there. You need the support of an experienced estate planning lawyer for matters outside of your beneficiary designations. Remember that the passing of your assets could have big implications for your loved ones, so this process needs to be approached with care and concern.

One of the most overlooked areas of titling assets has to do with a revocable trust. A revocable trust by its very nature can be changed and updated, but if you set up the trust and then promptly forget about it, this could cause serious issues for your family members intending to receive items inside the trust.

Make sure that if you wanted assets inside the trust for privacy and protection needs that you name the trust as the owner of those assets. All too often, setting up a trust excludes this vital follow-up step, and that can end up costing you significantly in the future. Set up a time to follow through on your trust after the initial setup so that each item inside is properly accounted for and so that you have peace of mind about the asset titling.

Planning for your own future is one component of setting up your retirement plans. But have you also thought about how the assets you own will be passed on to future generations? Retirement is a two-way street.

According to a new study shared on CNBC.com, around 100 million Americans are currently covered by defined contribution plans. These assets are growing in value and are now worth more than $7.5 trillion. Most of this money is stored in 401(k)s.

What’s troubling about that study, however, is that the size in the accounts is small, especially when the age category is broken down to older Americans. Older Americans not only need to worry about living longer, but about having enough assets to protect them in the event of a long-term care problem.

The median amount in those retirement accounts was just over $58,000. The good news is that even with some drops in the economy, the average defined contribution plan increased by as much as 4 percent, since most people were putting aside more money. Furthermore, plenty of people are now choosing to automatically enroll in retirement plans than before, which experts believe is a key sign to increasing total retirement account amounts in general.

In general, the amount of money being saved is not enough to support people in their own retirement given some of the complexities of saving and living longer. Think ahead about what other strategies can be used to support your retirement savings and whether risk mitigation like long-term care insurance can help.

Speaking with an estate planning lawyer, a CPA, and a financial expert can all help you plan ahead for your own future.

If you’re already thinking about your healthcare expenses, you’re one step ahead of most people. But how do you know what’s enough to save, when you should invest in LTC insurance, and how to truly prepare for your LTC expenses? It becomes all to easily to push this topic off entirely, but you can’t afford to make that mistake.

Planning ahead is key since most people over age 65 will need more form of long term care support in their older ages. Tasks of daily living might require assistance from an outside party- whether that’s a family member or someone in a nursing home or assisted living.

According to government studies, men will need this help on average for 2.2 years, while women will need it for 3.7 Most people have to turn to unpaid care from their family members, but given that more than one-third of people will need a nursing home at some point in their life, it’s important to think about the possibility.

The expectation that Medicare will help is a common misconception. Given that premiums for LTC insurance can be over $3,000, would you rather invest in LTC insurance or risk having your personal savings tapped if and when you need care?

The cost of a nursing home is substantial- if you have not talked over a Medicaid crisis plan with your lawyer, now is the time.

There are many different secrets for millionaires, but one of the biggest is that they manage their money and their mindset about money differently from other people. Even if you’re not quite a millionaire yet, adopting a healthy mindset and orienting your financial and estate planning around it can have ripple effects in your life.

One of the first things that millionaires do differently is look towards the future with excitement and not anxiety. They know that tax laws can and do adapt, and they have plans and conversations with advisors by keeping this in the back of their mind.

It might surprise you to learn that many millionaires live below their means. Most of them believe that spending less than they can afford allows for savings opportunities and amassing more wealth that not only benefits their personal life, but also benefits their loved ones, too.

Millionaires take a very healthy approach to learning more about money. They are constantly interested in ways to do things better, which opens them up to having deep conversations with experts about whether or not a new strategy might be more effective. The very act of questioning can be extremely positive.

Finally, millionaires know they need help with their money and planning. They recognize that, even with a high volume of wealth, that the job of protecting it is theirs. So they keep an open eye towards potential threats, like the possibility of a disability or a lawsuit. Asset protection planning is a priority for people in this position.

If you’re ready to start thinking like a millionaire and taking your future into your own hands, schedule a meeting with an estate planning lawyer today.

Are you ready for retirement and beyond? People are living longer than ever these days, and that means you need a plan to help yourself or to enable loved ones to step in for action if you are unable to make decisions yourself.

A trust is one of the most critical documents in an elder law plan. This is a popular option because trusts avoid probate, unlike a will. Sometimes you might turn to your lawyer to help with an asset protection trust if you believe that your assets could be tapped by a creditor or if you believe that you could need Medicaid in the future.

If you’re worried that your children or grandchildren might get married to someone who has their eyes on the inheritance you’ll pass down, a trust is also a valuable tool for ensuring that your loved ones get the assets, not someone else.

While all of these key documents help your family after you pass away, don’t forget about your own life. You might use a power of attorney to name the individuals who will make financial and legal decisions for you if you are unable to make them on your own.  A power of attorney can also be used with a trust to give you additional protection, especially if you’re worried about the possibility of a guardianship proceeding by the courts to determine who should take care of you.

You might also have other unique needs, like real estate or concerns about your spouse’s health, that should be discussed with your elder law attorney in detail. Both of you can create a plan for how you’ll protect your own life and the assets you intend to pass down, which gives peace of mind for all involved.

Most people haven’t set aside significant savings for the sole purpose of paying for their long term care but long term care expenses can have catastrophic effects on your savings, especially if you’re a partner with a spouse who might need to rely on these savings for the remainder of his or her retirement.

Many people need to invest in the process of doing strategic long term care planning to discuss the benefits of various types of ways to pay for long term care services. It’s estimated that more than two thirds of people above age 70 will require some form of long term care services that will range from between one and three years.

This could decimate an individual or a couple’s retirement planning savings and therefore, should be factored into conversations about Medicaid qualification and other assets. In many cases, people use a combination of different types of assets to qualify for long term care expenses. Personal savings gives the most flexibility when it comes to selecting options for long term care. Personal savings can be used for nursing homes, in home care, assisted living or adult daycare.

But this is a long term option for very few people due to the high cost. Veterans’ disability benefits can be used for any long term care services but non-disability benefits extended to veterans cover in home services and adult daycare while not rent at an assisted living facility and are therefore, more limited. Sometimes a loved one might turn to a reverse mortgage for long term health care needs and the money is then repaid when the home is passed onto an heir or sold.

Medicare will pay for very little of long term care and under limited condition, including skilled nursing care in a facility. Medicaid is a last resort but one that many people end up needing. In fact, in 2018 Medicaid accounted for 62% of nursing home residents. Schedule a consultation with an estate planning attorney today to learn more about how this could affect you.      

Far too many families find themselves in the position of realizing that Medicare doesn’t pay any or very little of the long term care expenses that can emerge when a loved one suddenly needs to enter the nursing home. Caring for a loved one at home might not be an option for your family. It may become stressful at the beginning and eventually become completely unmanageable.

If you are able to afford it, an assisted living facility is one optional solution. However, many people don’t have the financial means necessary to put a loved one in assisted living. One of the best protections against the rising cost of long term care and health expenses in older age is long term care insurance, but too few people know about it or have an active policy that could help them in the event of a sudden disability or long term care event.

Medicaid is another planning option but you must ensure that you have a Medicaid strategy and plan in place. This is because Medicaid has specific requirements about what it fully takes to meet the grounds for eligibility. Most people have no idea how the Medicaid process works. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, up to 75% of Americans aged 65 and above will need long term care for a period of between one and three years, but fewer than 30% of Americans over age 40 have set aside any money to pay for it.

This could be a catastrophic mistake for you and your loved ones if something suddenly happens to you and you are unable to care for yourself. It’s better to set aside time to speak with an experienced estate planning and Medicaid planning attorney today to learn more about how best to protect yourself.