Page 48 - Money - November 2018

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SOLOTHE FUTURE OF To be sure, consumers have historically compound inflation rider, the available
SENIORSRETIREMENT
balked at forking over a lump sum to an amount would be less at lower ages and more
insurance company. “What if I buy an at higher ages), according to a quote from
annuity, then get hit by a bus the next day?” Matt McCann, a long-term-care insurance
the typical objection goes. Short answer: You specialist in suburban Chicago.
lose the money. Longer answer: You should Porchon-Lynch still lives alone, in a
probably view the prospect of outliving your plant-filled apartment in New York’s West-
cash at age 85 or 95 as equally catastrophic chester County, where picture frames and
as getting hit by a bus. elephant statues line the shelves. She
developed a love of the long-lived pachy-
derms in her native India, which was
40%2 *36 032+ 8)61 '%6) colonized by France at the time. During
FINAL CONSIDERATION for the World War II, she joined the French Resis-
1SWX VIXMVIIW % new retirement marathon is tance led by Charles de Gaulle, whose
picture rests beside more recent photos of
enlisting help for the home
WLSYPH LEZI stretch. Long-term-care her, beaming in glittery ball gowns. She took
FIX[IIR insurance pays for services that people up ballroom dancing in her late eighties. “It
keeps your whole body alive,” she says of the
don’t want to think about needing: help with
ERH eating, bathing, getting in and out of bed tango, mambo, samba, and cha-cha that she
SJ XLIMV and to the toilet. Between half and three- dances with partners more than 70 years her
junior—she even competed on America’s Got
quarters of people turning 65 will need
SZIVEPP some form of long-term-care support and Talent with a twentysomething in 2015.
TSVXJSPMS services in their lifetime, according to Most of the very old eventually need some
MR WXSGOW estimates. And Medicare doesn’t pay for it. help—Porchon-Lynch no longer drives and
(The program will pay for limited, rehabili-
has friends take her to dance lessons and
tative stays in nursing homes—say, follow- Trader Joe’s—and there’s nothing wrong
ing a hip replacement—but not for so-called with that. Generally speaking, you can
custodial care that helps with activities of shorten the time you spend receiving
daily living.) intensive support and services by taking
Long-term-care insurance has made good care of yourself. Doctors call this
headlines in recent years for the big pre- “compression of morbidity,” the theory that
mium hikes that insurance companies have healthy behaviors can shorten the duration
imposed on policyholders to correct for between the onset of debilitating chronic
underpricing. But the policies issued today illness and death. As Orville Rogers puts it:
reflect corrected assumptions, and these “You not only live better with exercise, you
policies are less likely to see future hikes, live longer and die quicker.”
experts say. Rogers, a widower, moved into a retire-
Many older policies offered unlimited ment community about seven years ago. In
lifetime benefits, but today it’s more common addition to running, he loves driving a red
to buy a pot of money to pay for future Chevrolet Camaro he calls “Beth 10,” after his
long-term care, which could be delivered in a late, beloved wife—a purchase he made at 95.
care facility or at home. Consider a fiftysome- He also loves vacationing with his three
thing couple in very good health: When the children, 14 grandchildren, and 11 great-
husband is 55 and the wife is 51, they could grandchildren. They recently booked a trip
purchase a policy for a combined $200 a for next July to a Pennsylvania resort. “I’m
month, resulting in a benefit pool of more enthusiastic about life,” Rogers says. So it’s
than $500,000, or $7,665 per month, for probably no coincidence, he notes, that he’s
long-term care when the elder spouse enjoyed such a long one: “I can’t help but
reaches age 82 (owing to their policy’s 3% think that my attitude has played a part.”

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