As recently as 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that ten states had accused insurance companies of intentionally withholding unclaimed money from deceased policyholders’ families. In the same article, the WSJ wrote, “state treasurers currently hold $32.9 billion in unclaimed bank accounts and other assets.” Obviously, if people knew there was money to be claimed they would claim it. Failure to plan and organize affairs before the time of death, however, leads to confusion and sometimes a loss of everything you’ve accumulated over the course of your life. The passing of a family member is already overwhelming enough without the added pressure of sorting through files, papers, and storage containers

What to Store:

The more centralized the storage, the better. A great option is a portable fireproof safe. Be sure to include:

• List of insurance policies and company contact information.
• List of outstanding debts along with payments made and contact information.
• List of bank accounts.
• Copy of durable power of attorney and living wills.
• Copy of each of your wills with location of the originals.
• Copy of safety deposit keys.
• List of investments and retirement accounts.
• List of health providers, prescriptions, and doctors.
• Copy of social security number with an original in a bank deposit box.
• Birth Certificate, copy or original.

If you have things in more than one place, make a physically printed, or a flash-drive stored, list of the places your important documents are. Also, within this list, include a checklist of things you want your family to have access to so they know they aren’t missing anything when they do go over it. Give a copy or a flash-drive to those you trust or to be even safer, give the list to your lawyer who will share the information with your family in the event of your death.

Different types of Documents:

Maybe you know what each type of document does, but in case you don’t remember, here’s a quick reminder:

• A will or a trust allows you to dictate who your money/property goes to after you death. You’ll want to store an original copy in a very safe place, keep it with an attorney.
• A living will allows your medical wishes to be carried out if you are incapacitated. This allows you to decide on whether or not you’d want to be kept on life support, which takes tremendous pressure off of your family members if they ever find themselves in that situation.
• A durable power of attorney for health gives you the chance to name someone you trust to carry out medical decisions if you are unable to make them for yourself. There is also a legal version of the durable power of attorney, which allows someone to act on your accord if you cannot make your own legal decisions due to Alzheimer’s, dementia, or anything else that may happen.
• A general power of attorney gives your beneficiary the authority to act for you legally until you become unable to make your own decisions.
• Bank registration allows your spouse or child to access your bank accounts after you die along with any safe deposit boxes. This makes it more convenient because if their name is not registered with the bank they will need to go to court to gain legal access.
• House/land ownership deeds, stocks, bonds, vehicle titles, and mortgage accounts are self explanatory, but be sure to let your family know you own these things so they will not be overlooked. If they are unaware of these assets they may never find them.

Again, I know it’s hard to imagine the scenario of your death, but if your family depends on you financially, then the normal family grief could be turned into a financial nightmare. Owning multiple homes, cars, a large stock portfolio, retirement accounts, or bonds can make this process extremely difficult. The earlier planned the better. Preparation on your part will ensure your family is taken care of even after you’re gone.

Max Gottlieb is the content manager of both Prime Medical Alert and Senior Planning in Phoenix, Arizona. Prime Medical Alert allows seniors to age in place while Senior Planning offers free aid to seniors looking for benefits, new housing, or care options.

The post Organizing Affairs Before It’s Too Late appeared first on Michigan Estate Planning.

To start, a care plan must be signed off on by a doctor, and the home health agency you’ve selected must be Medicare-credited. In addition, the doctor must certify that you or your loved one is “homebound.”

If you work for a large corporation, chances are the health care part of your retirement package looks a heck-of-a-lot better than a lot of workers employed by a small to-medium size business. Those fortunate enough to have a health package may enjoy a range of bennies, from low medical premiums and extras like dental, hearing aids as well as coverage for eyewear.

To get an idea of just how those employer insurance programs or retiree insurance benefits have withstood the test of uncertain economic times, about 66 percent of retirees were receiving those nice health-care packages back in 1988, compared to only 25% today.

Medical costs will continue its upward trend in retirement.

It’s a depressing fact, but a gloomy forecast looms over the retiree’s Social Security income. In fact, such costs are sure to devour the “majority of retirees Social Security income.”

Are you 66 and planning to retire this year? You might be well served to either work longer or take a part-time job to help pay for health care costs. Surprisingly, notes a new report in the Wall Street Journal, those anticipated medical costs might very well eat up about 67% of a retiree’s benefit in those Golden Years.

If you’re ten years younger and looking to retire ten-years-from-now, count on your medical costs to take away about 90% of your Social Security income in your lifetime.

A simple reason…

Retirees on Social Security grapple with the ever-rising costs of Medicare premiums and skyrocketing medical costs, keeping them on a treadmill of never reaching parity with these costs. But it’s not surprising, given the fact that Social Security’s annual increases are averaging a meager 2%—that’s the current rate of inflation.

But according to Healthview founder, Ron Mastrogiovanni, medical costs are seeing increases from 5% to 7% annually. Unfortunately, those increases did not factor in that Elephant in the Room: long-term care.

Medicare will cover some home health services.

Family caregivers are not only providing for loved ones in time of need, but, ironically, their ‘service’ helps subsidize the Medicare system to the tune of $375 billion annually, according to an Indiana University report,

If you are over 50 years of age and care for a loved one, you are among the 10 million who do. Amazingly, this number has “tripled over the past 15 years,” as noted by a study that included the National Alliance for Caregiving.

“What can Medicare do for my loved one who needs home care?”

But the Medicare program does pick up the following home care costs, including, but not limited to…

— Intermittent skilled nursing care

— Physical therapy, including speech-language pathology services.

— Continued occupational services

Medicare does not pay for…

— 24-hour care at home

— Meals delivered to the home

— On-site homemaker services

— Personal care

What you need for determination…

For starters, a care plan must be signed off on by a doctor, and the home health agency you’ve selected must be Medicare-credited. In addition, the doctor must certify that you or your loved one is “homebound.”

Home health services include other choices.

Depending on where you live, other services can provide for this care, such as medical social services, part-time/intermittent home health aide services. What’s more, the cost of in-home medical supplies and durable medical equipment (walker, wheelchair) and injectable osteoporosis drugs.

Proper estate planning with an experienced elder care attorney, like Christopher J. Berry, can help you better understand the importance of setting aside funds for a long-term care policy; establishing a trust to provide continuity of your assets; creating a power-of-attorney for use if you are incapable of making your own financial and health decisions.

Contact us to learn more.

The post Medicare does pick up some home care costs; best bet is a long-term care policy. appeared first on Estate Planning Lawyers | Elder Law Attorneys | Brighton | Novi | Livonia Elder Law Attorneys.

The first reports on a study that finds that 60% of teen driver wrecks result from distractions.  This is probably not a surprise to any of us.  But the study was noteworthy for me because of the way it was conducted — the AAA Foundation watched nearly 1,700 in-car videos of teen drivers who were involved in wrecks to diagnose what the teens were doing immediately prior to the wreck.  The two biggest factors were talking to others in the car and using a cell phone, either for talking or for texting.  If you click the link, there is a video story that shows some of the video excerpts from the wrecks.  This is certainly something I’m going to make my teen driver watch.  Passing on this type of information should be of what we teach our kids.

The second article is a Wall Street Journal article entitled Better Ways To Teach Teen Drivers.  The story is based on a 2014 study that placed video cameras in parents’ cars to review what they were teaching their kids.  The analysis found that, by and large, teens are being properly taught the mechanics of driving — how to turn, how to control speed, etc.   Unfortunately, the study found that parents did not do a good job of teaching teens accident avoidance — how to recognize hazards, how to avoid those hazards, etc.

The best line in the article was discussing the fact that parents spend a lot of time on things they had trouble with, such as parallel parking.  But as the story noted, “Most people don’t get killed parallel parking.”  Instead, the article encourages parents to spend more time working on hazard recognition and judgment — making left turns into oncoming traffic, how to merge on and off highways at high speed, etc.  The article also encourages you to work with your kid in bad weather conditions, in crowded roads, and the like so that the teens’ first time experiencing these things are not while they are alone.

It pains me to give credit to an insurance company, but State Farm has a teen driving program called Road Trips on its teen driving website, http://teendriving.statefarm.com, that can help you with the process.  The website also has a 3-d video tool that helps kids learn to scan for hazards as they’re driving.

One of my pet peeves is when Michigan seniors are targeted with inappropriate investments–typically annuities and annuity scam schemes.  In other words, financial elder abuse.  I see it a bunch on the VA benefits side when a family is trying to help a veteran or surviving spouse qualify for the VA Benefit.  There are a ton of organizations that say they will help the veteran for free, but then sell them a high commission, hard to surrender annuity that makes no sense financial for anyone….other than the insurance broker who gets to pocket the 8-12% commission.

I had a client come into my office just in the nick of time, where they were going to move almost a million dollars into one of these ill suited annuities for his elderly father.  The annuity huckster, said that this was the only way dad would get VA benefits and that he had to buy the annuity.  That’s a load of bunk.

I had another client this year who had to pay $18,000 in surrender charges to get out of of one of these types of annuities because he need to pay for nursing home care for his wife.  Again, a Michigan senior sold an inappropriate product by an insurance broker.

Where to Get VA Benefits Information?

The devious part is that often, these insurance peddlers pass them self off as being VA Benefits experts or even worse, they pretend they are associated with the VA.  Many times they will have a VA logo on their card.  This confused not only seniors, but also assisted living communities and independent living communities.

My recommendation is to find a VA Accredited Certified Elder Law Attorney to review any VA Benefits questions that you may have.  A VA Accredited Certified Elder Law Attorney owes you a duty to act in your best interest, versus an insurance broker, who is really just a salesman of insurance products.

Investment Scams Targeting Metro-Detroit

What started this blog post was an article I read in the Wall Street Journal talking about insurance brokers and investment advisors targeting seniors with inappropriate investment products. Read more in the WSJ.com article here.  The article talks about the desperation some brokers go through and how they put their ethics and business on the line to lure seniors.

Fighting Back Against Financial Elder Abuse

Take a look at the article, let me know your thoughts.  If you’re a senior or have a senior loved one who has been taken advantage by a desperate broker (this could be construed as financial elder abuse), contact our office and we may be able to assist you.

Our office has engaged in education against financial elder abuse, where every year we help organize Michigan state wide initiative to provide education across all the senior centers in Michigan warning seniors and their families against this type of practice by desperate brokers and insurance salesman.

The post VA Annuity Scams, Bad Brokers, and Targeting Michigan Seniors appeared first on Estate Planning Lawyers | Elder Law Attorneys | Brighton | Novi | Livonia Elder Law Attorneys.

The lawsuit was filed by a whistleblower alleging that guardrails produced by Trinity Industries, a Texas-based guardrail manufacturer, are malfunctioning and killing drivers. The lawsuit further charges that the guardrail defect is the result of a product change that the company hid from the government and safety inspectors.

The judge dismissed the case over what he found to be “inappropriate conduct” on both sides, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The judge suggested that representatives from Trinity Industries may have tampered with witnesses. Further, the judge found that the whistleblower and plaintiff, Joshua Harman, may have destroyed evidence.

Since Harman has come forward with the charge of a product defect, numerous accident victims have claimed that guardrails malfunctioned, causing injury or death. A recent article by Bloomberg News noted that at least nine lawsuits have been filed by victims claiming personal injury or wrongful death caused by the guardrail malfunction.

The danger, according to Harman, is the end-cap on some of the guard rails. Allegedly, an impact plate that is meant to absorb energy and move along with the car can instead malfunction and pierce through the car, grievously injuring those inside.

Trinity Industries denies that any secret change was made to the guardrails. The company acknowledges that a change was made, but it insists that all regulatory bodies were appropriately informed and that all necessary safety testing was performed. The company also insists that the guardrails function properly, and it has not recalled any of the hundreds of thousands of implicated guardrails that currently line highways across the United States.

The case in question is Harman v. Trinity Industries, 2:12-cv-00089, in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District TX.

At The Hale Law Firm, we have helped thousands of clients successfully prosecute their personal injury claims including auto accidents, wrongful death, dangerous products, brain injuries, burn injuries, and defective medical devices. Clients depend on their personal injury attorneys for guidance and legal advice across a broad range of personal injury accidents. To learn more, visit http://www.hale911.com/ or call 972.351.0000.

The article examined issues that we all must be aware of as we age: some retirees, even when dementia is not an issue, have trouble identifying riskier investments or warning signs, and financial scammers often take advantage of this.

The Wall Street Journal piece told the story of a client we helped with just this type of situation.

The article is an important reminder that older investors and their families need to be on guard. Even highly intelligent and sophisticated investors can fall prey to scams and bad investments.

As Michael Gilfix states in the article, it is also important for adult children of retirees to monitor their parents’ financial health just as they would their physical and mental condition.

No one should have to tackle these complex issues without assistance. At Gilfix & La Poll, we have decades of experience in the field of elder law, and we take pride in providing our clients with the highest level of service and advice.

As the feature in the Wall Street Journal illustrates, Gilfix & La Poll is a nationally recognized authority in the field of elder law and estate planning. We know you have worked hard to earn what you have, and you want to secure a comfortable retirement. We know how important it is to ensure that your assets are preserved for your loved ones and that your wishes are honored after your passing. To accomplish those goals, you should have the experience and knowledge of Gilfix & La Poll at your disposal.

To see other national publications that have featured Gilfix & La Poll, please see our In The News section.

Indeed, annual premiums have doubled and even tripled in a few short years. Twenty percent annual increases are expected.

The real question focuses on, “What to do about the cost of long-term care?”

If you have sufficient resources, long-term care insurance is still an alternative to consider. Do not, however, do so blindly. You can calculate the cost over a twenty-year or thirty-year period. You could put those funds aside to pay for the cost of long-term care if you are very disciplined and have tenacity, patience, and fortitude.

This alternative, in other words, is to “self insure.” Rather than put $200,000 into the hands of a long-term care insurance company, set that money aside, ideally in a tax favored account, and use it when you need it.

The other alternative is Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California. Medi-Cal is a needs-based program. The Wall Street Journal indicates that it is “a government health program for poor people.” This is a gross misstatement.

For an individual to qualify for Medi-Cal, for example, she can have no more than $2,000 in countable assets. Federal law provides that a residence is an exempt resource, which means that its value is not counted when determining eligibility. There is a cap in most states of $750,000 on the value of an exempt residence if the individual is in a skilled nursing facility, but the point remains.

For a married couple, there is no cap on the value of an exempt residence when one spouse is in a nursing home. The spouse living at home can retain at least $115,000 in her name if her institutionalized spouse is in a nursing home and receiving Medi-Cal/Medicaid benefits.

Moreover, numerous planning steps can be taken to protect assets and qualify for Medicaid. While this is by no means an ideal outcome, it is the only alternative to losing all of your money in far too many cases.

The message is that you must think about this eventuality – the need for long-term care services at home or in a facility – and plan accordingly. If you do not have long-term care insurance, do not expect the government to come to your assistance unless you plan for Medicaid. Medicare does not pay the ongoing cost of nursing home care.

We understand these options and these rules intimately. We have been helping people plan for almost thirty years with consistent success. You must learn about your options.

Pioneers of Elder Law – For over 30 years, Gilfix & La Poll Associates LLP has innovated creative legal solutions to help you manage and plan the future of your estate.
To contact an estate planning lawyer visit http://www.gilfix.com/ or call 800.244.9424.