The most important thing that you can do in planning for future contingencies is to act now. The future may hold limited resources or health problems for you and either one of these may prevent you from taking care of the things that you can easily achieve today.
In Part 1 of this series, I showed how making a good Long-Term Care Plan is an urgent and necessary step in preparing for the future. In Part 2, I outlined the three most essential documents found in that plan, namely, a General Power of Attorney, Advance Medical Directive with a Long-Term Care Directive and a Lifestyle Care Plan. In the last installment, Part 3, I discussed using long-term care insurance as part of a Long-Term Care Plan. As we saw in Part 3, Virginia’s Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership Program offers government-endorsed “Medicaid Asset Protection” to consumers who buy long-term care insurance.
Part 4 will now discuss how our Living Trust PlusTM Asset Protection Trust can protect you from probate (as does a Revocable Living Trust) PLUS protect you from the expenses of long-term care.
You Can’t Afford to Ignore Long-Term Care Expenses
Whether you’re rich, poor, or somewhere in between, you cannot afford to ignore the potentially devastating costs of nursing home care and other types of long-term care. Nursing homes are the most likely and one of the most expensive creditors that most Americans are likely to face in their lifetimes. Remember the following statistics that I cited in Part 1 of this series:
- About 70% of Americans who live to age 65 will need long-term care at some time in their lives, over 40 percent in a nursing home.
- As of 2008, the national average cost of a private room in a nursing home was $212 per day or $77,380 per year.
- The average person age 65 today will need some long-term care services for three years. Women need care for longer (on average 3.7 years) than do men (on average 2.2 years). Twenty percent of them will need care for more than five years.
- Long-term care is not just needed by the elderly. A recent study found that 46 percent of group long-term care claimants were under the age of 65 at the time of disability.
Contrast the above long-term care statistics with statistics for automobile accident claims and homeowner’s insurance claims:
- Between 2005 and 2007, an average of only 7.2% of people per year filed an automobile insurance claim.
- Between 2002 and 2006, an average of only 6.15% of people per year filed a claim on their homeowner’s insurance.
Revocable Living Trusts Don’t Help
A revocable living trust is a wonderful tool to protect your assets from the expenses of probate, but it does not protect your assets from the expenses of long-term care while you’re alive. Because you have 100% unlimited access to the funds in a revocable living trust, so do your creditors, including nursing homes and State Medicaid programs.
Living Trust PlusTM: Protect Assets from Probate PLUS Lawsuits PLUS The Expenses of Long-Term Care
In response to this limitation of revocable living trusts, I have developed a unique solution – a special type of irrevocable trust called the Living Trust PlusTM that functions very similarly to a revocable living trust but protects your assets from the expenses and difficulties of probate PLUS lawsuits PLUS the expenses of long-term care while you’re alive, in addition to a multitude of other financial risks during your lifetime. The Living Trust PlusTM protects your assets from lawsuits, auto accidents, creditor attacks, medical expenses, and — most importantly for the 99% of Americans who are not among the ultra-wealthy — from the catastrophic expenses often incurred in connection with nursing home care. For most Americans, the Living Trust PlusTM is the preferable form of asset protection trust because, for purposes of Medicaid eligibility, this type of trust is the only type of self-settled asset protection trust that allows a settlor to retain an interest in the trust while also protecting the assets from being counted by state Medicaid agencies.
Even though the Living Trust PlusTM is “irrevocable,” it can still be terminated so long as all interested parties (typically you and all of your beneficiaries) agree to terminate it. Additionally, you remain in control of your assets because:
- you can be the trustee if desired;
- you retain the right to receive all of the trust income;
- you retain the right to live in and use your real estate;
- you retain the right to change trustees; and
- you retain the right to change beneficiaries.
The Living Trust PlusTM has no effect on your income or your income taxes.
If you’re a client or potential client who would like more information about the Living Trust PlusTM, please call us at 703-691-1888 to contact us for an appointment, visit the Living Trust PlusTM web site at http://www.livingtrustplus.com or click here to register for one of our upcoming Living Trust PlusTM informational seminars.
If you’re an attorney interested in more information about the Living Trust PlusTM or interested in the possibility of licensing the Living Trust PlusTM Asset Protection System, visit the Living Trust PlusTM web site at http://www.livingtrustplus.com and click on the link labeled “For Attorneys.”
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About Evan H Farr, CELA, CAP
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