Estate Planning

Planning issues to consider

Long-term care insurance

Long-term care insurance can help pay for nursing home care when someone is unable to perform a specified number of activities of daily living. Long-term care insurance can also cover health care in a person's home as well as services such as physical, occupational and speech therapy, home health aides, visiting nurses, adult day care centers and hospice care. Premiums for long-term care insurance are determined by age, waiting periods, health status, and the duration and amount of benefits being sought. It is usually most cost-effective to buy long-term care insurance when one is young and in good health.

Disability Insurance

Many people believe that Social Security, worker's compensation or their savings would be enough to provide for them if they became disabled. However, these alternatives often fail to provide enough income to maintain even a moderate lifestyle. Depending on the plan, disability insurance coverage allows a person's income stream, or a portion of it, to continue during a short-term or long-term disability.

Pre-Needs Burial Plans

Pre-planning a burial can insure that wishes will be carried out by the person or persons chosen. By pre-planning final arrangements, family members or friends are protected from having to make difficult decisions. The best way to pre-arrange for a funeral service is to meet with a pre-needs family counselor. Pre-planning can include the entire funeral, including choice of internment in a cemetery, mausoleum, or cremation, or it can include only a portion of the decisions.

Life Insurance

Life insurance is a vehicle that can be used to help make sure that all of one's assets at the time of death are not so severely depleted that those left behind do not have sufficient assets to continue to live at the level to which they have become accustomed.

Life insurance proceeds are paid income tax-free to the people listed as beneficiaries of the policy. These funds can be absolutely necessary to replace the lost income of a wage earner or to pay for funeral costs, outstanding debts, probate costs and other expenses that may exist upon death.