Long Term Care Insurance

Long Term Care insurance provides a regular cash benefit which allows you to make choices when an illness, accident, or deteriorating physical or mental abilities could result in the need for long term care. It offers an income that helps bridge the gap between using your personal finances and government.

Here are the trends:

• Over the next 25 years, 1 in 4 Canadians will be over 60 – this movement is influencing the design of everything around us.
• By 2010, 60% of boomers over 50 years old will have a surviving parent (versus only 16% in 1960) – our ‘Gucci’ boomer generation will be able to demand, as they have throughout their journey due to size, quality resources and services (for their aging parents)
• The first round of Canada’s 10 million baby boomers will reach the age of 65 over the next decade, significantly swelling the masses of our senior population beginning in 2011 – the need for care services will see a dramatic rise and will continue to increase for the next 4 decades during this age-wave.
• In 2016, Canada will experience a “phenomenon’ never recorded before, we will have far more seniors than children (age 14 and under) in our country – the change will be visible in the economic and social fabrics of our provinces.
• 1 in 5 Canadians 45 years and older provides care to a senior at present – the care issue will become even more ‘visible’ over the next 3 decades peaking in 2035 when our provinces will experience the highest demand for care as baby boomers close in on 75.
• One seldom mentioned fact is that increasingly in or country, parents and their children will be seniors ‘at the very same time’ – since current research tells us that the health of those seniors providing care (whether an offspring or a spouse) is greatly at risk, the question will be where to turn for help and/or how to finance such assistance.
• Working care-givers, who are juggling care responsibilities plus work duties, cost Canadian employers $16 billion per year – not only should care-giving be recognized now as an important workplace issue as 66% of informal caregivers are still in the work force, but also it is destined to be less-silent in the near future with HR departments forced to deal with its impact (watch for the term ‘care-giver glass ceiling’).
• Seniors are our country’s fastest growing population group with the number of persons aged 65 and over to double from nearly 4 million in 2000 to almost 8 million by 2026 with the most rapidly growing age group the 80 year old and older – given that less than 10% of long-term-care in our country takes place in a nursing home, with most LTC taking place in a private home by family and friends as caregivers; given that maintaining one’s independence within one’s own home is ranked as a number one priority by seniors; and given that long-term-care expenses and time have a potentially crippling impact on a family, long-term care insurance will become a priority for adult Canadians.

On a personal note – I have watched my parents be caregivers to their parents, my grandmother is the last one still with us – she is 78 years old and suffers from bad hips – heart problems – which makes her more prone to illness. She has hospice care 2 times a day that is covered by the government – the other 20 hours a day is covered by my parents. The stress and anxiety and lack of freedom has taken its toll on them – both are now taking anti-depressants to cope and their health is deteriorating – a common occurrence to care-givers. They had a lot travel planned – now put on hold – If they put my grandmother in care for 2 weeks so that they could go away – it would cost them $2000.