By Elliott Topkins, Esquire
9/29/11
We live in a society that is more health conscious than ever before. Many of us still smoke, but it is getting harder and harder to find an interior location, other than your home, to continue the habit. There are many people who drink alcohol, some to excess, but many more are cutting back because of health concerns and the real fear of causing injury to someone else when drinking and driving. In a word, we are healthier, and, thus, physically able to survive for longer periods than our parents. You know that people are living longer when you see how much rates for term insurance have come down in the past few years.

The phenomenon of living longer is both the good news and the bad news. Good news because we will have more time to enjoy our children and our grandchildren and, for some, even our great grandchildren. The bad news is that although we may be living longer, and in better shape physically, there are often sudden episodes of Alzheimer’s or dementia or strokes, which in a second make us unable to take care of our affairs, and in many cases in need of assisted living and nursing homes.

I have been practicing estate planning law for more than 44 years. The elder care aspect of this type of law is not something that is intuitively easy to grasp, and it requires knowledge of Federal, State and Social Security laws and regulations to master. In a word, elder care has become an important sub-specialty of estate planning, and I have reached the conclusion that I need to refer elder clients to lawyers who have the knowledge and experience to guide people down the often circuitous paths that must be travelled to maximize their situation and pass on as much as they can to future generations.

This post is not written to identify the individuals whom I have allied myself with to help older clients do the best job they can of protecting their assets. As is often the case in referrals, some people like chocolate and some vanilla. That is why I suggest several different local elder care practitioners when I am asked. The point of the post is to get those of you who are over 55 years of age to start thinking about doing elder care planning before you are in a compromised position and unable to function.

There follow some considerations which you should be considering:

Do you trust your children? If you do, there is much, much more that you can do than if you do not.

Have you looked at long-term care insurance, or deferred annuities, as a way to protect your assets in the future?

What is your family history, in terms of longevity and type of health issues? If you have a family history of early dementia, it may behoove you to act sooner than if you do not.

None of the aspects of this post are especially pleasant to consider. On the other hand, not taking action, when action is dictated, may result in consequences that none of you would wish.

(Mr. Topkins is an attorney with Topkins & Bevans, Braintree Executive Park, 150 Grossman Dr., Braintree, MA 02184. His blog can be found at http://realtorsresourceblog.com. His telephone number is 617/596-3184 and his e-mail address in etopkins@topbev.com.)