Despite a growing need for investors to start thinking about their long-term care needs, a study from Lincoln Financial Group, found that only 16% of more than 2,500 people surveyed are very familiar with the features and benefits of long-term care solutions.
Long-term-care needs usually pertain to assistance with activities of daily living, including bathing, dressing or eating. A long-term-care solution will help to pay for some of those costs.
Medical bills can accumulate putting a person’s finances in jeopardy, increasing the need for investors to save early so they have enough to pay or defray the costs of medical bills. Those concerns do not appear to impact many investors, according to the study that Philadelphia-based Lincoln released.
Advisors are not having these conversations with their clients on the topic and many do not even know what long-term care even is, the study found.
“The disconnect comes from just starting to have that conversation,” said Bill Nash, head of MoneyGuard Distribution at Lincoln.
The survey found that 36% of those surveyed just do not want to have the conversation while 29% do not want to have that conversation with their families.
Lincoln conducted the study in October online and heard from a few thousand respondents. The exact number ranged depending on the question from 2,662 to 3,023. The study found that of those surveyed, less than 40% who have worked with a financial advisor have discussed a long-term care plan.
The advisors’ challenge comes from broaching the topic with their clients. Many do not know when or how to start.
The best time is to incorporate it during an annual review, Nash said. He suggested starting with high-level questions such as if the client has thought about care, what their plan is, the type of care they want, who will help them, and where they want that care if it is at a facility.