Cava Faulkner

Our nation’s population is aging at a faster rate than ever before, and collectively we are living much longer than in the past. In fact, by 2034, seniors (age 65 and older) will outnumber children under age 18 for the first time in U.S. history, according to Census Bureau projections.

With the booming aging population, more and more seniors will require long-term healthcare services, whether at home, in an assisted living facility, or in a nursing home. However, such long-term care can be extremely expensive, especially when it’s needed for extended periods.

Moreover, many people mistakenly believe that their health insurance or the government will pay for their long-term care needs. But the fact is, traditional health insurance doesn’t cover long-term care. And though Medicare does pay for some long-term care, it’s typically limited (covering a maximum of 100 days), difficult to qualify for, and requires you to deplete nearly all of your assets before being eligible (unless you use proactive planning to shield your assets, which we can support you with if that’s important to you and your family).

To address this gap in healthcare coverage, long-term care insurance was created. Since such insurance is fairly new, here we’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions about these policies to help you determine whether you (or your loved ones) could benefit from investing in long-term care insurance coverage as part of your estate plan.

A: Long-term care is a general term that describes the type of care or support you need when you are no longer able to handle activities of daily living (ADLs) on your own. ADLs include things, such as getting dressed, bathing, eating, and using the bathroom.

In some cases, long-term care might simply mean that you have someone assist you in your own home with getting ready in the morning and before bed at night. In other cases, long-term care might mean you move into a nursing home to recover from surgery or manage a chronic medical condition.

Some common activities of daily living (ADLs) include:

• Ambulating (walking or getting around)
• Feeding
• Bathing
• Dressing and grooming
• Using the restroom
• Continence management
• Getting in and out of bed or a chair

A: Long-term care services typically fall into two categories: personal care and skilled care. Personal care, also known as custodial care, is for people who require assistance with non-medical activities, including the following:

• ADLs such as dressing, grooming, bathing, and eating.
• Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), such as grocery shopping, meal prep, and laundry
• Companionship
• Supervision
• Transportation

Skilled care, or skilled nursing care, is for people who require skilled medical care or rehabilitation services, including:

• Medication management
• Vital sign monitoring
• IV treatments or feedings
• Occupational, physical, and speech therapy
• Wound care
• Mobility assistance

A: First introduced as “nursing home insurance” in the 1980s, long-term care insurance is designed to cover the expenses related to your long-term care in the event you are no longer able to handle your own ADLs.

These policies cover the cost of both personal care and skilled care services whenever and wherever you plan to receive care, whether in your own home, an assisted living facility, a nursing home, or a community care facility. Some policies even cover modifications to make your home more accessible, such as adding wheelchair ramps or grab bars to your bathroom.

A: Before your coverage kicks in, most policies require that you demonstrate you have lost the ability to engage in at least two or three ADLs. Most policies also have a deductible, or “elimination period,” which is a set number of days that must elapse between the time you become disabled (eligible for benefits) and the time your coverage kicks in.

Many policies offer a 90-day elimination period, but others can be longer, shorter, or even have no elimination period at all. Of course, the shorter the elimination period, the more expensive the premium. Additionally, long-term care policies typically come with a predetermined benefit period, which is the number of years of care it will pay for.

For example, a benefit period of three to five years is a quite common duration for such policies. Most policies also come with a cap on the dollar amount of coverage that will be paid for care on a daily basis, known as a Daily Benefit Amount.

A: Obviously, the younger and healthier you are when you buy the policy, the cheaper the premiums will be, so the sooner you invest in coverage, the better. In fact, most policies exclude certain pre-existing conditions, so if you wait until you become ill, it can be impossible to find coverage.

For example, if you have any of the following conditions, it generally disqualifies you from obtaining coverage:

• You already need help with ADLs
• You have AIDS or AIDS-Related Complex (ARC)
• You have Alzheimer’s Disease or any form of dementia or cognitive dysfunction
• You have a neurological disease, such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s Disease
• You had a stroke within the past year to two years or have a history of strokes
• You have metastatic cancer
• You have kidney failure

According to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI), the best age to apply for coverage is before you reach your mid-50s. Beyond that age, your health is unlikely to improve significantly, so waiting longer will typically increase your premiums, or you may even become ineligible before acquiring a policy.

A: If you are looking to purchase long-term care insurance, you should speak with multiple insurance providers and compare their benefits, care options, and premiums. Different companies may offer the same coverage and benefits, but they can vary dramatically in price. Always ask about the insurance company’s history of rate increases, including the amount of the most recent increase.

For the best chances of success when shopping for a policy, get help from a fee-only planner, who is not compensated based on your choice of coverage. Or, if you are working with a commissioned agent, consult with your Personal Family Lawyer®, who has experience in elder law, and we can review the policy terms to ensure it’s a good fit for you before you sign on the dotted line.

A: When meeting with an insurance provider, you must get answers to the following three questions about your policy:

1. How long is the elimination period before the policy begins paying benefits?
2. What capacities, or ADLs, must you lose before coverage kicks in?
3. How many years of care are covered?

These are the most important elements in a long-term care policy, and as such, they will make the biggest difference in the quality of coverage and the amount of your premiums.

A: Yes, you can buy long-term care insurance for your parents. You will pay for the policy, and then have your parent(s) listed as the beneficiary. If you know you are going to be the primary caregiver for your aging parents, investing in a policy for them can help offset the expenses related to their long-term care.

Furthermore, buying long-term care insurance should always be a family affair, because you are going to need your family members to advocate for you and file a claim for the policy when you need to use it. Given this, make sure your family knows what kind of policy you have, who your agent is, and how to make a claim.

What’s more, you should pre-authorize the right person to speak to the insurance company on your behalf, and not just rely on a medical power of attorney. That said, you should definitely have a well-drafted, updated, and regularly reviewed medical power of attorney on file as well.

A: Once you are in your 50s, your long-term care policy should be reviewed annually to evaluate new insurance products on the market and update your policy based on your changing needs. Whatever you do, once you have a policy in place, make sure you don’t miss a premium payment. If you fail to pay, even for a short period of time, you’ll lose all of the money you invested and will have no access to the benefits when you need them.

Meet with your Personal Family Lawyer® for guidance and support in finding the right long-term care insurance policy for your particular situation. In addition to life insurance, a long-term care insurance policy is a key component in your estate plan. When combined with the right estate planning strategies, you can rest assured that your loved ones will be protected and provided for no matter what happens to you.

As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we view estate planning as much more than just planning for death, which is why we call it Life & Legacy Planning. Ultimately, it’s all about your life and the legacy you are creating by the choices you make today. Contact us today to learn more.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

With the arrival of summer, young people across the country are about to reach a key milestone: high school graduation. If you have a child claiming their diploma, now is the time to prepare them for life after leaving the nest.

Graduating high school is a significant accomplishment. However, it comes with serious responsibilities that your child probably isn’t thinking much about right now. Once your child turns 18, they become a legal adult, and specific areas of their lives that were once under your control will be solely their responsibility.

While your child will now be a legal adult, you still have essential parental duties. Yet, if you don’t support your child to step into adulthood with legal documents to help both of you, it can be challenging and costly for you to help them in the event of an emergency.

For instance, should your child get into a severe car accident and require hospitalization, you would no longer have the automatic authority to make decisions about his or her medical treatment or handle their financial matters. In fact, without legal documentation, you wouldn’t even be able to access his or her medical records or bank accounts without a court order.

To address this vulnerability and ensure your family never gets stuck in an unnecessary court process, before your kids move out or head off to college, have a conversation about estate planning and have them sign the following three documents.

1. Medical Power of Attorney

The first document your child needs is a medical power of attorney. A medical power of attorney is an advance healthcare directive that allows your child to grant you (or someone else) the immediate legal authority to make healthcare decisions on their behalf if they become incapacitated and are unable to make decisions for themselves.

For example, the medical power of attorney would allow you to decide about your child’s medical treatment if he or she is knocked unconscious in a car accident or falls into a coma due to a debilitating illness.

Without a medical power of attorney in place, if your child suffers a severe accident or illness that requires hospitalization and you need access to their medical records to make decisions about their treatment, you’d have to petition the court to become their legal guardian. While a parent is typically the court’s first choice for a guardian, the guardianship process can be slow and expensive.

And due to HIPAA laws, once your child becomes 18, no one—not even parents—is legally authorized to access his or her medical records without prior written permission. But an adequately drafted medical power of attorney will include a signed HIPAA authorization, so you can immediately access their medical records to make informed decisions about their treatment.

2. Living Will

While the medical power of attorney allows you to make healthcare decisions on your child’s behalf during their incapacity, a living will is an advance directive that provides specific guidance. These are specifications on how your child’s medical decisions should be made, particularly at the end of life.

For example, a living will allows your child to advise if and when they want life support removed should they ever require it. In addition to documenting how your child requests their medical care managed, a living will also include instructions about who should visit them in the hospital and even what kind of food they would want to have provided. For example, if your child is a vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, or takes specific supplements. These are all things that should be considered and recorded in their living will.

Finally, speak with your child about the unique medical decisions related to the coronavirus, particularly in intubation, ventilators, and experimental medications. Your child’s quality of life decisions should also be outlined in their living will. You can find in our previous article, COVID-19 Highlights Critical Need for Advance Healthcare Directives.

3. Durable Financial Power of Attorney

Should your child become incapacitated, you may also need the ability to access and manage their finances, and this requires your child to grant you durable financial power of attorney.

Durable financial power of attorney gives you the authority to manage their financial and legal matters, such as paying their tuition, applying for student loans, paying their rent, negotiating (or re-negotiating) a lease, managing their bank accounts, and collecting government benefits if necessary. Without this document, you’ll have to petition the court for such authority.

Start Adulthood The Right Way

Before your kids head out into the world, make sure they’ve got the proper planning in place. By doing so, you are modeling good financial stewardship and setting them up right from the start. Financial and legal illiteracy is an epidemic that you can quickly address, starting with yourself and your own family.

As your Personal Family Lawyer®, we can not only help you create these vital documents, but we can also facilitate a family meeting to discuss the importance of planning. We will begin what we hope will be a life-long relationship with your children as they take this crucial first step into adulthood. Contact us today to ensure that if your child ever does need your help, you’ll have the legal authority to provide it.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

We can all learn a lot from celebrity estate planning mistakes. Discussing death can be awkward, and many people would prefer just to ignore estate planning all together. However, ignoring—or even putting off—such planning can be a huge mistake, as these celebrity stories will highlight.

The next time one of your relatives tells you they don’t want to talk about estate planning, share these famous celebrities’ stories to get the conversation started. Such cautionary tales offer first-hand evidence of just how critical it is to engage in estate planning, even if it’s uncomfortable.

In January, we reported how the deaths of NBA legend Kobe Bryant (Kobe) and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a helicopter crash demonstrated the vital need for estate planning for people of all ages. At the time, little was known about the planning strategies Kobe had in place to protect and preserve his estimated $600 million estate for his wife, Vanessa, and three surviving  daughters, Natalia, 17, Bianka, 3, and Capri, 7 months.

Since then, court filings made by Kobe’s widow have shed light on both the successes and failures of Kobe’s estate planning efforts. On the positive side, Kobe created an extensive estate plan, which included the Kobe Bryant Trust to protect his assets, reduce estate-tax liability, and pass on his wealth to his family.

While the contents of trust remain private, the court documents do provide a summary of the trust’s terms. Upon Kobe’s death, the trust was set up to allow Vanessa and her daughters to draw from the principal and income of the trust’s assets during Vanessa’s lifetime, with the remainder going to their children upon Vanessa’s death.

However, while the trust lists Vanessa and his oldest daughters Natalia, Brianna (who died in the crash with her father), and Bianka as beneficiaries, his youngest daughter, Capri, who was born just six months before Kobe’s death, was not included in the document. Reportedly, Kobe and his lawyers simply never got around to adding Capri to the trust before his untimely death at age 41.

Seeking to fix this oversight, Vanessa Bryant and Kobe’s best friend Robert Pelinka, Jr.—who were named Co-Trustees—petitioned the Los Angeles court to modify the trust by adding Capri as a beneficiary with equal rights as her sisters. Unless the court agrees with the petition, Capri will be ineligible to inherit her share of the family estate held in the trust, which could amount to wealth and assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

According to the petition, the trust was created in 2003 after the birth of the couple’s first child, Natalia, and its intent was to provide for the support of Vanessa and all of the couple’s children following Kobe’s death. As evidence of this intent, the petition points out the fact that Kobe amended the trust to add daughters Brianna and Bianka after they were born.

Although it’s likely the court will agree to the trust’s modification to include Capri, the fact remains that Kobe and his legal team made a major error by not updating his plan immediately following her birth. This mistake has undoubtedly cost Vanessa not only hefty sums of money in lawyer fees and court costs, but it also eliminated the trust’s biggest benefits by failing to keep Kobe’s surviving family members out of court and conflict, as well as exposing the estate’s details to the public.

And the most unfortunate part of the whole situation is just how easily this oversight could have been avoided.

It’s a popular myth that estate planning is simply a matter of creating the proper documents, filing those documents away for safekeeping, and only revisiting them upon the creator’s incapacity or death. However, this is far from the truth. Indeed, this oversight by Kobe’s lawyers illustrates why most plans—even those created by multi-millionaires—fail to keep families out of court and out of conflict when it’s too late. And though Kobe’s family can easily absorb these costs, your family probably can’t without significant impact.

As Kobe’s case shows, even the most well-intentioned plan can prove ineffective if it’s not regularly updated. Estate planning is not a one-and-done type of deal—your plan must continuously evolve to keep pace with changes in your family structure, the legal landscape, your assets, and your life goals.

And unfortunately, this kind of thing happens all the time. In fact, outside of not creating any estate plan at all, one of the most common planning mistakes we encounter is when we get called by the loved ones of someone who has become incapacitated or died with a plan that no longer works because it hasn’t been updated. Yet, by the time they contact us, it’s too late.

We recommend you review your plan annually to make sure it’s up to date, and immediately modify your plan following events like births, deaths, divorce, and inheritances. We have built-in systems and processes to ensure your plan is always up to date, so you won’t need to worry about forgetting anything.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

Although you may have just filed your 2019 income taxes in July, now is the time to start thinking about your 2020 return due next April. While it’s always a good idea to be proactive when it comes to tax planning, it’s particularly important this year.

In addition to annual updates for inflation, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides individual taxpayers with several new tax breaks, most of which will only be available this year. The sooner you learn about the different forms of tax-savings available, the more time you will have to take advantage of them.

Here are 6 ways your 2020 return will differ from prior years:

You are typically required to take an annual required minimum distribution (RMD) from your IRA, 401(k), or other tax-deferred retirement account starting in the year when you turn 72, but the CARES Act temporarily waived the RMD requirement for 2020. The waiver also applies if you reached age 70½ in 2019, but waited to take your first RMD until 2020, as allowed under the SECURE Act.

RMDs generally count as taxable income, so taking this waiver means that you may have lower taxable income in 2020 and therefore owe less income taxes for 2020.

However, there are a number of factors to consider, including the state of the market and your living expenses, when deciding whether or not to waive your RMDs. Given this, consult with us or your tax professional before making your final decision.

If you do not itemize deductions, you can use the standard deduction to reduce your taxable income. Trump’s tax reform legislation nearly doubled the standard deduction starting in 2018, and it has increased even more for inflation since then. For 2020, the new standard deduction amounts include the following:

• $12,400 for single filers
• $24,800 for those who are married filing jointly
• $18,650 for people filing as a head of household

Depending on the type of retirement account you are invested in, the maximum amount you can contribute may have increased this year. The contribution limit for a 401(k) or similar workplace-retirement plan has increased from $19,000 in 2019 to $19,500 in 2020. If you are 50 or older in 2020, the 401(k) catch-up contribution limit is $6,500, up from $6,000.

On the other hand, the amount you can contribute to a traditional IRA remains the same for 2020: $6,000, with a $1,000 catch-up limit if you’re 50 or older. However, if you made too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA last year, the maximum income limits for contributing to a Roth have increased, so you may be able to contribute in 2020.
In 2020, eligibility to contribute to a Roth IRA starts to phase out at $124,000 for single filers and $196,000 for married couples filing jointly. Those phase-out limits are up from 2019, which started at $122,000 for single individuals and $193,000 for married couples.

In most years, you are only able to deduct charitable donations on your income tax return when you itemize deductions. However, the CARES Act included a provision to allow everyone to claim up to a $300 “above-the-line” deduction for charitable contributions, if you take the standard deduction in 2020. This change was designed to encourage people to donate money to charity to help with COVID-19 relief efforts.

If you adopted a child this year, you can claim a higher tax credit on your 2020 return to cover your adoption-related expenses such as adoption fees, court and attorney costs, and travel expenses. The maximum credit amount for 2020 is $14,300, which is an increase of $220 from last year.

If your finances were seriously impacted by the coronavirus, you may be in dire need of funds to cover your expenses. Thanks to new rules under the CARES Act, you now have more flexibility to make an emergency withdrawal from tax-deferred retirement accounts in 2020, without incurring the normal penalties.

Ordinarily, permanent withdrawals from traditional IRAs or 401(k) accounts are taxed at ordinary income rates in the year the funds were taken out. And pulling out money before age 59 1/2 would also typically cost you a 10% penalty.

But thanks to the CARES Act, you can avoid the 10% penalty (if under 59 1/2) on up to $100,000 in coronavirus-related distributions (CRDs) from your retirement account. You are also allowed to spread such distributions over three years to reduce the tax impact. Or better yet, you can opt to put this money back into your retirement account—also within three years—and avoid paying taxes on the money all together.

That said, emergency withdrawals are only available to those individuals with a valid COVID-19-related reason for early access to retirement funds. These reasons include:

• Being diagnosed with COVID-19
• Having a spouse or dependent diagnosed with COVID-19
• Experiencing a layoff, furlough, reduction in hours, or inability to work due to COVID-19 or lack of childcare due to COVID-19
• Have had a job offer rescinded or a job start date delayed due to COVID-19
• Experiencing adverse financial consequences due to an individual or the individual’s spouse’s finances being affected due to COVID-19
• Closing or reducing hours of a business owned or operated by an individual or their spouse due to COVID-19

Because early withdrawals can negatively impact your retirement savings down the road, if you are looking to take advantage of this provision, you should consult with us and your financial advisor first. Also note that employers are not required to participate in this provision of the CARES Act, so you’ll also need to check with your plan administrator to see if it’s available at your workplace.

While the deadline for filing your 2020 income taxes isn’t until April 15, 2021, with all of the new COVID-19 legislation, the earlier you start planning your taxes, the better. Consult with us, as your Personal Family Lawyer®, for support in clarifying how these new changes will affect your return and to implement strategies to maximize your tax savings for 2020 and beyond.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.