62 Who Knew – Planning for Long-Term Care, for Homeowners and Their Advisors
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Most households know long-term care is likely. Far fewer have a funding plan for it. The gap between those two facts is where retirement plans tend to come apart, not because the need was unforeseen, but because the question of how to pay for it was deferred until the options had narrowed.
In a recent episode of the 62 Who Knew podcast, host Michael Banner brings together a panel of long-term care and retirement planning specialists, Colleen Cruz, Lindsay Friedman, and Brian Wally, to walk through the funding sources families actually use when care becomes necessary. The conversation moves across traditional long-term care insurance, annuities with care benefits, life insurance with long-term care riders, and the home itself, which for most retiree households remains the largest asset on the balance sheet.
A recurring theme is the risk of self-insuring by default. Many families assume they will pay for care out of savings if and when it arrives, without modeling what a multi-year care event does to a portfolio that is also expected to generate income for a surviving spouse. The panel also returns to timing: insurability is a function of health, and the planning window is widest while a client is still healthy enough to qualify for coverage.
The discussion gives particular attention to housing wealth, which the panel notes is often absent from the long-term care conversation despite its size. Some advisors evaluate how a portion of home equity might be positioned to fund care-related strategies, whether that means premiums on a hybrid policy, an annuity designed to cover care costs, or a liquidity reserve set aside for in-home support. Modern structures such as home equity investment agreements, CHEIFS® among them, allow housing wealth to enter that conversation without adding new monthly payments or interest, settling instead from the home’s value at a future settlement event such as a sale or transfer of the home, permanent move-out, or the homeowner’s passing. Which tool fits, if any, remains a client-by-client judgment made with a client’s own financial, tax, and legal professionals.
Key takeaways from the episode
The panel’s central point is that long-term care funding is a planning decision, not a crisis response, and that the range of available tools is wider than most clients realize. Insurability narrows with age and health, which argues for having the funding conversation earlier rather than later. Self-insuring from the portfolio carries second-order risks to income and to a surviving spouse that are easy to underestimate. And home equity, the asset most households hold in the largest amount, is one some advisors are beginning to evaluate alongside insurance and annuity strategies rather than after them.
Whether you are a homeowner thinking ahead about care or an advisor working on retirement income, long-term care, insurance, or tax strategy, this episode offers a useful framework for a conversation most families would rather postpone.
Watch here: 62 Who Knew on YouTube
