Linda's Story

I'm passionate about making long term care insurance part of the retirement planning process. I think you'll see the value of adding this step as you begin planning for your life after work.

My passion is fired by my personal experience.

Current statistics tell us that at age 65+, 1 in 2 people will use some form of long term care during their lives(1). Think about everyone you know in that age group, and think about half of them needing long term care during their retirement “golden years.”

But in my experience, the numbers are much higher than 1 in 2. My family’s stat is 5 out of 6.

My first experience was with my father in law. "Pappy," as we called him, was the picture of health at 77. He walked 6 miles a day, shadow-boxed (he was a former amateur boxer), loved Nebraska Football, traveled with my husband’s stepmother, and enjoyed the horse races! They lived in Lincoln so we saw them often.

They were approved for long term care in 1993, right after I started my career in insurance with Principal Financial Group.  About a year after they got their LTC insurance, we noticed some changes in Pappy's behaviors, and soon after he was diagnosed with dementia and Parkinsons disease.  We tried helping them at night for about a year, but it got to be too much for her and us (we had three small children at home, both worked and were involved in the kid’s activities).  So we called Principal and Pappy was approved for long term care claim for home health care.  We had home health care for about 3 years, then they then moved to assisted living for about three years, where they were both on claim.  Pappy’s disease continued to progress until he required too much care and we had to move him to Tabitha nursing care. At that time, my mother-in-law had a stroke, and died in January 2001.  The long term care enabled us to keep Pappy at home as long as possible by having caregivers come to their home. Pappy was in nursing home care for 3 years, and because he had long term care insurance, we were able to choose where he received care. Without the insurance Pappy’s nest egg for retirement would have been gone, and my mother-in-law would not have been able to stay in her townhouse until she needed assisted living.  So that’s 1 and 2...

My mother was healthy as a horse, so to speak: never sick, active, healthy her entire life. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 1999.  She acquired long term care insurance when I got into the insurance profession in 1992. 

Flashback to 1992: When we applied for long term care, my healthy mother was issued a policy.  My father was not insurable; he had his first heart attack at age 40, smoked, had high blood pressure, had a triple bypass in 1991 and kept on smoking. The underwriter, who I knew, said, “your dad just doesn’t learn does he?”   So we took out a $100,000 life insurance policy on my mom, in the event that she would die before he did.  But we all were pretty sure (including my dad) that my dad would die first. If not, the $100,000 death benefit would fund his long term care.

Who would have thought, my healthy active mother at age 69 would be diagnosed with early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.  My dad took care of her for two years despite his own congestive heart failure. He just could not bear the thought of having her in a nursing home.  We tried home health care – that lasted about one day as my mom locked the care giver out of their house!  So for a year, my brothers and sisters and I took turns going home to Kimball, NE every Friday evening to help dad over the weekend, and then return home Sunday evening.  (We live in Colorado, Iowa, Lincoln, Wyoming and Gering NE.)  Finally dad decided it was time to have her go to the nursing home in Kimball. That lasted about 3 days — they really wanted to help mom since everyone knew her—but they were not set up or trained to handle this disease. We then moved her to the Alzheimer's unit at Heritage House in Gering, NE. Because we had long term care insurance, we had a choice as to where she would receive care.  That’s three...

My father was so sad when Mom passed away, his health continued to decline, and in May 2004, he had a relapse. The doctors told him he would have to either have someone come in to help him, or move to assisted living.  He decided to go off his medication and turn off the defibulator because he could not fathom going home and not being independent. He died a week later.
That’s four...

My husband, Tom, took early retirement from teaching in January of 2001. He taught middle school for 30 years for Lincoln Public schools. I’ll never forget the day he came home and said he wanted to go to one of LPS' retirement planning seminars because he had decided to retire mid-year in January 2001.

Well, that was not MY plan as I thought we would work until age 65 (Tom was 56 when he retired – the "rule of 85" for those of you who are teachers!). But I knew that he was ready. We had apartments that he would manage, play some golf, and keep busy with lots of projects…and he was still playing fast pitch softball!

In the Spring of 2002, we were on top of the world, as our first grandchild had been born.  We were so happy, and Tom was so excited to be available to help with his grandson since he was retired!  Then in May, Tom complained often of a twitch in his neck. One night he came home from playing fast pitch softball, and said he was having trouble fielding the ball with his left hand. He went to see an orthopaedic doctor, who thought he might have strained his left forearm lifing weights. They couldn’t see an apparent injury.  He had Tom squeeze a ball with both hands to see the strength in each – it was 50 in his right hand, and only 5 in his left hand.

At about the same time, he went to see a chiropractor and friend of ours for the twitch in his neck. He didn’t find anything on the x-rays, so he referred Tom to a neurologist.  I knew he was going to the doctor, but both of us just thought it was a pinched nerve.

On Thursday, June 20th, I came home from work and Tom was in the kitchen. We poured a glass of wine and he said he had gone to see the neurologist that day.  I asked what he thought was wrong – a pinched nerve?  Tom looked at me and said, "I wish that’s what it was. He thinks I have Lou Gehrig’s Disease – ALS."  I got goose bumps, just like I am now, as I share this story with you. I said, “What?!”  The neurologist referred us to a doctor who specializes in ALS.  We saw him on July 7th; he diagnosed Tom with ALS and referred us to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion. On August 21, Mayo confirmed the diagnosis. 

We had a 7-hour drive home that day. Both in shock, we talked about what we were going to do, and we made some decisions that day: pray for a miracle and prepare for the worst. We vowed we would not let this disease change who we were and how we lived our lives.  We made a list of all the things that we were going to do in retirement—all the things that Tom wanted to do—because with ALS, you don’t know how it will progress or how fast. We were told the average life span is 3 years from diagnosis, so whatever we decided to do, we knew we should do it sooner than later.

We also decided that we would care for Tom at home.

We had purchased long term care insurance in 1999 thinking, of course, it would be there for us when we were old. Who would have thought we would be using it at age 57?

Tom’s ALS progressed to his left arm, right arm, left leg then right leg. We then decided to remodel our home so that we could care for him there. We attended MDA clinics where a neurologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist and speech therapist all met with us as a team to help us stay ahead of the disease and be prepared as it progressed.  In October 2002, our neurologist told us that if we were going to make any changes to the house, we should get started.  We thought that was a bit strange as Tom was walking fine, but we decided to get started on the remodel on January 30, 2003. Our handicap-accessible home was ready on April 3, 2003. Tom could not climb up the stairs. We put an elevator in on the ground floor so that Tom had access to both the ground floor and the main living level.

We got it done just in time.

We began home health care in March 2003 with a caregiver coming in for 2 hours in the morning—then all morning—then all day—then in the evenings—then all night. At this point Tom was not able to speak, so he was communicating with a talking device.

Tom died October 31, 2004...at home with us at his side.

That’s five.

Long term care insurance made a huge difference in our lives; most significantly, of course, with Tom.  We were able to choose to have him live his last two years as he fought this disease in our home. We were able to choose the care that was best for him. Long term care made it possible for us to make the most of our time with Tom – focused on him – not on how to pay for everything. I was the primary caregiver for Tom, but I was not the ONLY caregiver. The benefits of our long term care insurance allowed us to have professional caregivers. That freed me to be his wife, his friend, the love of his life and my kids were able to be his sons and daughters. We kept on making memories of those times together.

When we received our long term care policies in August 1999, I invited our children to dinner. We told them that our gift to them was our long term care insurance.  I think it is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.

Please, as part of your planning for retirement, educate yourself about long term care. Think through different  scenarios for retirement – what will the financial impact be to you if one or both of you need care? Then make your decision.

Thank you.

(1) 44% of people reaching age 65 will use a nursing home facility at least once in their lifetime.  Source:  Stillman and Lubitz's report "Medical Care," published 2002.

At least 70% of people over age 65 will require some form of long-term care service at some point in their lives.  Source:  US Department of Health and Human Services annual report on LTCi costs, referenced in a Consumer Reports study (August 2008).