Everything Elderly - Visiting Angels home care and long term care insurance
Angil Tarach with Visiting Angels
Everything Elderly is on Saturday mornings at 8:30, on 1290 am WLBY, sponsored by Senior Helpers. This past weekend, we enjoyed speaking about home care with Visiting Angels and had a helpful discussion about long term care insurance.
Angil Tarach, registered nurse and the owner of Visiting Angels, was our first guest. Angil’s company provides private duty home care, helping seniors stay in their place of residence. She has owned and operated this agency for more than eight years.
Angil’s oldest son Michael is her assistant director, Kaylee helps in the office, and she has a team of fabulous caregivers. Their care is specific to what their clients need. They help out a lot of families, generally where the adult children are worried about their parents.
Angil’s talk focused on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Most families and many in the medical community don’t really know how to effectively communicate with those with Alzheimer’s. Angil provided many useful tips including:
Angil stressed the importance of family caregivers getting a break, having some time away from the day to day caregiving. It’s very hard work and very wearing on people to be full-time family caregivers.
There are some great resources on the internet. Angil herself writes for and strongly recommends the website alzheimersreadingroom.com.
To get in touch with Angil or Visiting Angels, please call 734-929-9201, or go to the website visitingangels.com/annarbor. If you’d like to listen to the full 12-minute segment click the audio linke below:
Walt Garff - Certified Long Term Care Specialist
Photos by Sheila Doeden
Joining us next was Walt Garff, a certified long term care specialist, who represents Genworth Financial and several other long term care insurance companies. Long term care insurance is complicated, and Walt really understands the subject. He is a very useful resource for those wanting to better understand this coverage. Having this insurance in place can help families stay out of the full-time caregiving business.
The long term care insurance industry has gone through a lot of growing pains in the past 10 years. There used to be 200 companies in the business, and now it’s closer to 100. Many companies lost money, and most of those remaining had to raise premiums.
The people that really need this insurance are those that have a family to protect or those with financial assets to protect. If you have lower income, the premiums will likely be unaffordable. Walt believes paying the premiums should not change your lifestyle.
The biggest mistake people make with long term care insurance is “picking the wrong horse,” meaning not choosing a good company. You want a company that has been handling long term care policies for at least 25 years, a company that understands the business and the risks, prices their policies fairly and allows different care options. You really should talk with a specialist, someone that understands this business.
If you would like to contact Walt Garff, please call 734-747-7036. You may also e-mail Walt at wgarff@comcast.net. To listen to the full 12-minute discussion click the audio link below:
Alan Caldwell is the owner of Senior Helpers, providing in-home care services, primarily to the elderly. He can be contacted at acaldwell@seniorhelpers.com, or at 734-927-3111.
Comments
Walt Garff
Mon, Jan 10, 2011 : 2:36 p.m.
I have been on this local radio program twice and both times I have said (or intended to say, edits are possible) that you should work with someone who specializes in long term care insurance. I do not know Mr. Olsen, I have never had any commmunicaton with him but based on what he wrote below (where we have some minor differences but his guidelines are fine), and after taking a quick look at his website, I believe he is the type of agent you should work with. My focus is in working locally, cudos that Mr. Olsen is on top of the web and is working nationally. No one can be an expert in everything and, in my opinion, LTCI is too important not to work with someone who specialices in it, offers multiple leading carriers and has been in the business for several years. One size does not fit all in the LTCI business and I am sure both of us have cases where working with an LTCI specialist has made the difference in getting a client approved and family and assets protected. The point is find someone you trust and plan now for LTC. Walt Garff Ann Arbor, MI
Scott
Mon, Jan 10, 2011 : 11:20 a.m.
Basic advice about long-term care insurance: Buy a policy that meets the federal guidelines-that's called a "tax-qualified policy." Buy a policy that meets your state's guidelines-that's called a "Partnership-qualified policy Buy a Daily Benefit that is high enough to cover most of the cost of care in your area. If home care is important to you, make sure the policy allows for all of the Daily Benefit to be used for care at home. Buy a policy that has a "Policy Limit" that is equal to the amount of your net worth that you want to protect for yourself, spouse, or heirs. If youre healthy, you should probably purchase a policy on your own, rather than through your employer. Choose an insurer that is rated A or higher by A.M. Best. Lastly, shop around. LTC insurance premiums vary a lot from one company to the next. Get quotes from at least 7 of the top companies before choosing your policy. Scott A. Olson www.LTCShop.com