(4 Minute Read)
Medical care and treatments become more and more prevalent in the lives of seniors as they age. More than 8.3 million seniors receive long-term care every year, and they all look for ways to keep up with the costs of the care. Seniors living on fixed incomes, with strictly-set budgets, might need to look for more options to pay for their care; here are three.
Get a Bridge Loan
When it’s time to move yourself or a parent into an assisted living facility, the first asset you think to sell is a home. This is often the best way to use available resources to gain necessary funds to support the costs of assisted living. However, it’s hard to say how long it will take to sell the home. If it takes months, or even longer than a year, that means the funds needed to pay for senior care are also on hold. Bridge loans are designed to cover the time between anticipated transactions, like the time between putting a house on the market and closing on the sale.
One bridge loan that many seniors can take advantage of comes from Elderlife Financial Services, who specializes in providing bridge loans to seniors that need assisted living care but haven’t yet acquired necessary funds from the sale of their assets.
Stay In-Home with a Reverse Mortgage
Long-term healthcare doesn’t always move patients out of their home. In-home care provides seniors the ability to remain in their homes while still receiving the assistance and care they require. Seniors who wish to remain in their own home but still need funds to finance their assisted care might consider a reverse mortgage.
Reverse mortgages allow seniors to utilize the equity they’ve built up in their home over the years. Mortgage holders can receive cash as a tax-free loan against their mortgage, which doesn’t have to be paid back until the home is sold, the homeowner moves out, or they pass away. A big advantage of reverse mortgages is that homeowners are not allow to take out an amount that is larger than the home’s value. This means that once the house is sold, the reverse mortgage is paid and any children or heirs won’t be stuck with the bill.
Utilize Your Insurance
Many seniors looking toward long-term care will consider long-term care insurance policies that will provide a daily maximum reimbursement to caregivers for necessary daily assistance in bathing, dressing, eating, or more. The reimbursement value, and the tax-deductions available on premium payments and received benefits, make these policies attractive, but they often come with a high cost to maintain.
Another way to leverage your insurance is to consider getting rid of any life insurance policies that you might not have a need or a want to keep any longer. Surrendering a policy will provide a portion of the death benefit, based on how much you’ve paid into the policy. Another way to leverage a life insurance policy is to sell it through a life settlement, or viatical settlement. In a life settlement, policy holders can sell all or a portion of a policy to a second party buyer for an amount of upfront cash that is significantly greater than the policy’s surrender value. Life settlements, or viatical settlements, are a great way to put any under-performing policy to use.
If you’re interested in life settlements, or viatical settlements, and how they can help you access the funds necessary to support senior care, please don’t hesitate to give us a call or visit our website for more information!
Case Study:
Lynn stopped working outside of the home last year so she could take care of Jack as his health continued to decline. They were concerned about the loss of income from Lynn’s job.
Jack discovered he could sell his life insurance policy for $85,000 which made Lynn’s decision to stop working much easier.
