LTC Insurance vs. Self-Funding Care

Should you use pay for care with long-term care insurance, self-fund, or a combo? What things needs to be considered?

Join me and my guest co-host, Nic Nielsen, Co-Owner of Know My Plan, as we discuss as we chat about:

🔹 What is LTC? 

🔹 10 things to consider when deciding to buy LTC insurance and/or self-fund care

🔹 Who LTC insurance is NOT a good fit for

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/3tzs-JdFq7s

For additional information about Kelly, check her out on Linkedin or www.SteadfastAgents.com.

To explore your options for long-term care insurance, click here.

Steadfast Care Planning podcast is made possible by Steadfast Insurance LLC,
Certification in Long Term Care, and AMADA Senior Care Columbus.

Come back next time for more helpful guidance!

Transcript

Kelly Augspurger: [00:00:02] Hey everyone. Welcome to Steadfast Care Planning, where we plan for care to live well. I'm your guide, Kelly Augspurger. Today I have a guest co-host, Nic Nielsen, who's going to ask me the questions today. Nic is a certified financial planner and co-owner of Know My Plan. Nic, thanks so much for being here!

Nic Nielsen: [00:00:20] Kelly, it is always an awesome experience to get to spend some time with you, so I'll take all of the Kelly time that I can.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:00:25] Glad to talk with you today. We're going to be chatting about long term care insurance and self funding long term care. We're going to kind of compare the two, some pros and some cons. So let's get into it.

Nic Nielsen: [00:00:39] Alright. Before we get too far into the details, tell our audience what exactly is long term care.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:00:45] Yeah. So I think there's some misconceptions of what long term care really is, Nic, so I'm glad that we can define this. So I want you all to think about the term extended care. Okay. That is really what we're talking about when we're talking about long term care. If you need help throughout the day physically or if you need supervision because of a cognitive impairment that is long term care or extended care. Physically, what we're talking about, we're really talking about Activities of Daily Living. That's what we say in our industry: ADLs or Activities of Daily Living. These are transferring, toileting, bathing, dressing, eating and continence. These are things we do every day we don't even think about, right? We get up in the morning, we go to the restroom, we get dressed, we feed ourselves. So that is really if we need help with any of those things, that's long term care or if we end up with a cognitive issue like Dementia or Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and we need supervision to keep ourselves safe or others around us safe, that is long term care and as far as a time period, we're really looking at more than 90 days if our expected need of care is more than 90 days. Ding, ding, ding. That's long term care. Okay. I think another important thing to remember here, Nic, is you don't have to be sick to need care.

Nic Nielsen: [00:02:08] Yeah, you could be happy and you don't have to have cancer or heart issue or anything like that, right?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:02:15] It could just mean simply due to the fragility of aging, right? We lose mobility, we lose strength, we lose balance and so we may need some help to keep ourselves safe and others around us safe so you don't have to be sick to need long term care. That is what long term care is.

Nic Nielsen: [00:02:32] Awesome. Thank you for that definition. So today we're going to talk about long term care versus self-funded care and love that you use the word self-funding because so often in this industry, at least in the financial planning industry that I'm in, we use the wrong term and say self-insurance. So love that you you make the distinction there. Maybe you can talk about that if you get a second. So what are the important considerations for someone to think about self-funding their future care they might need versus long term care insurance?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:03:02] Yeah, well, there is a distinction. We technically cannot self-insure because insuring means we are transferring risk. So when we are paying for care, we call it self-funding and not self-insuring because we're not transferring that risk. But self-funding, Nic, is really the default plan for people if you don't have insurance, if you don't have a way to pay for care ahead of time, your plan is, "I'm just going to use my income, my savings, my investments, my assets to pay for care. What I've saved and what I've worked hard for." But what's important to consider here is income actually pays for care, not assets. You have to convert those assets to income to be able to pay for care. People with millions in assets might say, "Oh, I have plenty of money, I'm just going to pay for care if I need it." But we're going to talk about all the reasons you may want to reconsider that plan. Okay. There are financial, physical, mental and emotional consequences at stake if we don't have a plan. Now, I didn't say if we don't have insurance. If we don't have a plan. Insurance is important. It can be a way to help fund that plan, but everybody needs a plan for long term care. People that buy insurance are typically not trying to insure their total long term care expenses. So I think that's important for people to understand is when people buy insurance, it's not all or nothing. It's not, "Oh, I have insurance, so I'm not self-funding." It could be a combination where it's "I have X amount in coverage and anything above that, I'm going to self fund," right Nic? Like in your experience with your clients, are most people doing a combination where they've got, you know, maybe it's $4,000 a month, but anything above that, they're going to be using their savings and their investments to co-fund?

Nic Nielsen: [00:04:52] Yeah, kind of think about stress testing the portfolio for lack of a better term. We know how much income the portfolio could produce when there is a gap. Maybe they can afford to pay out of pocket $5,000 a month. They have the excess income in the portfolio that can generate the income, but there is a gap between what care could cost versus what their portfolio income is and so you have to fill that gap or you don't have to, but good planning would say, you know, let's get 4 or 5, $6,000 in today's dollars worth of care to fill that gap, so you don't spend down all of your assets, especially for a married couple.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:05:33] Yeah, great consideration there, Nic.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:05:35] Now for a brief message from our show sponsor, The Steadfast Care Planning podcast is sponsored by Amada Senior Care Columbus. Amada is your one stop shop for in-home caregivers, senior housing advice and long term care insurance claim assistance. Visit AmadaSenior Care.com/Columbus-Senior-Care to learn more.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:05:55] When we're looking at self-funding versus insurance and even how they can work together I think there's ten main things that we need to think about. Okay? So the first thing is leverage. When you have insurance, that's what it does, it provides leverage, right? You put in a dollar, you get a multiple of dollars back in benefits if you go on claim and even up to an unlimited amount of benefits, if you have like a lifetime benefit. Not a lot of people do, but some people do. So I like to think of it like you're getting care at wholesale prices instead of retail prices. Who doesn't like a discount, right?

Nic Nielsen: [00:06:30] Everyone loves a discount. It's the Kohl's cash.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:06:33] That's right. That's right. Everybody wants that sale, and that's what insurance allows you to do because you're getting all this leverage. So I want to take a look at an example to show you what kind of leverage that insurance can bring. So let's take a look at a couple ages 55. They live in Ohio. They have a traditional long term care insurance policy and they have a monthly starting benefit of $5,000. We're going to look at a period of time of three years each, but also the ability to share benefits if they need more care. And we're also going to add a 3% inflation protection rider on there so that benefit grows. Okay, so starting benefit $5,000. In 25 years when they're age 80, we have over $10,000 each in benefits, $10,000 each in benefits. Okay. Year one, their total bucket of money, each is $180,000 each. In 25 years, that grows to over $365,000 each. Again, because we've got shared benefits, one spouse can dip into the other spouse's bucket of money. Their total premiums, both of them together, $6,277. So for $6,277 per year, we're getting a starting benefit total bucket of money of $180,000 each. That's $360,000 total. Right. So you put in this much, but you get this much.

Nic Nielsen: [00:08:02] Immediately.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:08:03] Immediately and so and then obviously, over time, that's growing because you have inflation protection. So that's the leverage that we're talking about when we're talking about insurance. But what if you don't? What if you don't have insurance? Well, obviously, you don't have that leverage, right? It's a less efficient way of paying for care because you don't have that discount or you don't have that coupon, if you will. Okay. So that's the first thing to consider is leverage.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:08:30] Number two, what about the cost? If you have insurance, obviously you're spending money on premiums, right? We just talked about $6,277 per year for that couple. Typically, people are paying annually or over a lifetime, but it could be over a period of time. It could be over 5, 10, 20 years or even paid with a lump sum. What happens if you don't need care? Well, if it's a traditional standalone policy, you don't have a residual value there, unless you bought perhaps a return of premium rider, which very, very few people do, but you have gotten valuable protection over your lifetime and it really is the most cost effective solution. But it came at a cost. You paid premiums, right?

Nic Nielsen: [00:09:09] Just like homeowner's insurance, right or auto insurance is no different. If your house doesn't burn down, you're not sad that you had homeowner's insurance.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:09:19] That's right. You're glad that you had the protection, but it was a cost effective way to get protection and the same with health insurance. If you don't have that major health event or go to the hospital, you're not bummed out you didn't have to visit the hospital. No. You have insurance and if you need it, it's there. If you have a hybrid policy, there's a death benefit or a cash value if you don't need care, but what happens if you do need care? You have a large bucket of money to be able to pay for care, whatever type of policy you have. So this goes back to the leverage that we just talked about. What if you're self-funding? What's the cost? If you don't need care, great! No money was spent on premiums and there's no burden on the family, but what happens if you do need care? It's expensive. We all know it's expensive, but how expensive is it? How much does care cost? Well, to give you an idea based on Genworth's Cost of Care survey in Columbus, Ohio, because that's where I am. Median, so middle of the road prices, for home care based on, let's say 44 hours a week, which is about six hours a day, is going to cost you almost $6,000 - $5,968. What about assisted living? We're looking at about $4,334. In my experience though, that's low. I typically add about $1,500 to that assisted living cost. If you want a nicer assisted living, you're going to want to add about $1,500. What about if you have to go to a nursing home, which is the last place most people want to be and end up, it's over $9,000. Okay? So that's the cost if you're paying out of pocket for care, if you're self-funding. Just so you know, if you have a policy, the idea is you're avoiding the nursing home. It's nursing home avoidance plan is really what the insurance is. So that's the cost, Nic.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:11:02] Number three, taxes. If we have insurance, they're tax advantages. If you have a policy. How so? Well, benefits from a reimbursement policy are all tax free. Benefits from a cash policy are received tax free up to per diem limits. In 2023, the per day limit is $420. However, if your actual expenses paid for care are greater than those limits, it would actually be tax free. But you may be able to deduct a portion or even all of your premiums as a medical expense, depending on your age, the type of business structure, and if you're a business owner, but you are avoiding tax consequences with the policy since it's tax free.

Nic Nielsen: [00:11:42] Because where's where's the reality, right? When this happens in real life, for people that have chosen to self-fund. The two largest assets that people have is generally their home and their retirement account.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:11:53] Right.

Nic Nielsen: [00:11:53] Now, you start taking out $9,000 a month from your retirement account. Correction, you need $9,000 a month, so you're taking out $12,000 a month from your retirement account, which is all taxed as ordinary income.

Nic Nielsen: [00:12:05] Right.

Nic Nielsen: [00:12:06] That is like the tax time bomb, right? It is rolling that tax time bomb down the hill picking up speed and that's where legacies are depleted very, very fast.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:12:16] Absolutely. If you are self-funding, what tax free money do you have to pay for care? Like you just said. You know, it's probably pretty likely that people are going to be drawing from those retirement accounts and if you have to pull 5 to $10,000 out of an IRA or 401k, that hurts and to consider that money actually counts towards your adjusted gross income, right Nic? Which increases your tax rate, which increases your Medicare premiums because your adjusted gross income has increased. So a lot of things to consider if we're completely self-funding, that there could be some serious tax consequences there.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:12:50] Number four, Nic - dedicated funds. If we have a policy, it's going to protect what you've worked hard for. It's going to give you a dedicated source of funds for long term care so that all of your other funds aren't at risk. This can free you up, you Nic as the financial advisor, to be able to invest in ways that maybe you wouldn't have been able to because, you know okay we have X amount in this bucket of money to pay for care, so maybe we can be a little more aggressive in how we invest because we have this money in this particular bucket. If you're self-funding, all of your funds are at risk if you don't have a stop gap, which is insurance, right? So we have to be mindful of if we are self-funding, what am I going to use to pay for care? Do I have a dedicated bucket? Do I have a sinking fund to be able to pay for care? What's that going to be?

Nic Nielsen: [00:13:41] And you can't count the money twice.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:13:42] No. You can't.

Nic Nielsen: [00:13:44] It is either dedicated funds for future health care expenses or it's an account that is dedicated to creating income or potential income for you, right? You can't have one bucket of money and give it to purposes because you run the risk of it accomplishing neither of what you want it to do.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:13:59] That's right and Nic, I know you're a fan of health savings accounts, right? As a way for people to be able to pay for all kinds of health care expenses, including long term care. So if long term care insurance is not a good fit for you, for a variety of reasons, maybe a health savings account is something to consider to be able to pay for care.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:14:17] Moving on to number five, Nic, guarantees and predictability. Long term care insurance brings predictability to a very unpredictable situation. We don't know if and when we're going to need care and for how long, but why do we buy insurance? For the guarantees! If we need the care, we know exactly how much tax free income we'll have coming in to help pay for care. Plus, we're also going to have professional services to help our family. So it really helps make an unmanageable situation more manageable. If you're self-funding, you don't have this predictability because we don't have a dedicated bucket of money that we know exactly is going to be guaranteed in year ten to be this amount. You know, you might have an idea or a guess or a prediction of, you know, if we earn 7% or 6% or 5%, whatever it is, on this money, this is how much we're going to have. That's not a guarantee.

Nic Nielsen: [00:15:13] It's a contractual guarantee.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:15:16] That's right.

Nic Nielsen: [00:15:16] With an insurance company, it's a contract, and insurance companies are regulated at the state level and they have to abide by it. They're not going to get off the hook.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:15:26] That's right. If you meet the triggers of that policy, if you meet that contract language, which is two out of six activities of daily living or you have a cognitive impairment and you need supervision and you're expected need of care is more than 90 days. Bada bing bada boom, right? Like that's the contract language for a qualified policy. So they have to stick to that. And those are the guarantees.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:15:45] So moving on to number six, Nic, other consequences that we need to consider. If you have a policy, the idea is we are reducing those other consequences. What are these consequences? I'm talking about financial, physical, mental and emotional consequences that often occur when we have an extended care situation. So are you or are your clients counting on their kids or your kids to provide care for you? Can your kids do that? And do they want to do that? You know, do they have a family? Do they have kids to care for? Do they have a job? Would they have to reduce hours at work? Would they have to quit their job to provide care for you? So rather than counting on family to physically provide the care, hiring professionals who are equipped to do this, it protects your family. But we know it can be expensive to hire professionals, so if you have a policy we know we have this tax free money coming in to help pay for the care, which is going to mitigate those financial consequences. And this can allow you to have your care provided by those professionals so your family can supervise your care, which mitigates those physical consequences so they can supervise and not physically provide the care. They won't have to sacrifice their physical health, their time, their energy, their job to give you the care that you really need and you deserve. It's also going to reduce those mental and emotional stressors because you're bringing in quality care, right? And your family's not having to provide that care and it's going to bring peace of mind. If we're self-funding, if you rely on family to provide that care instead of professionals, your family will experience the difficulties of caregiving, and I can attest to that. Okay. It's hard. If you hire professionals, you're going to need to pay for that care, which is expensive. So we got to have a way to pay for that, but then your family's going to need to coordinate that care or supervise the care.

Nic Nielsen: [00:17:27] It's very personal.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:17:28] It is. It's extremely personal. You can't skip these emotional and mental stressors. It just happens. It's given when there's a long term care situation and so there's no way to completely avoid it, but we can reduce it. We can reduce it if we have a plan of who's going to provide care, where we're going to receive care, and how are we going to pay for care. That's really the goal here.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:17:54] Number seven.

Nic Nielsen: [00:17:55] Lucky number seven.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:17:56] What else can we expect if we're self-funding or with long term care insurance? Well, number seven - professional services and other benefits. If you have a policy and if you need extended care, someone will need to organize and make those decisions for you. And that burden usually is going to fall on your family, whether it's a spouse, your kids, your extended family, maybe a close friend. Your family will need help navigating the situation, right? That's where care coordinators come in and case managers and claims specialists. These professionals can guide the family through the whole process. Most policies are also going to include benefits like home modifications, caregiver training, respite care, bed reservation, things we don't even think about, you know? But these added benefits can really enhance and help the whole family and the situation so that if you're self-funding, what's your family going to do? They're probably going to have to go to Google to figure these things out or ask a friend that maybe has gone through it. So these other benefits, Nic, I think are often very much overlooked but extremely valuable.

Nic Nielsen: [00:19:05] Yeah, we often underestimate the value of expertise until it is needed and someone like you has worked with hundreds of families in creating a plan. You know, these care coordinators, they've done this hundreds or thousands of times. So you lean on the expertise of people who have done this hundreds of times, whereas if you're self-funding, you've done this once, maybe twice, maybe 3 or 4 times. Very few individual families have done it more than that, but lean on expertise. It is incredibly valuable. That would probably be my one big takeaway for most families is you don't know how much you need it until you're in that moment.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:19:40] Right and when you have those benefits and when you have those services, you are so grateful you do, right? You are like, "Thank the Lord that I have this in my life, these people, these advocates on my side helping me through this situation" because it's relieving some of that burden. Does it mean there's not going to be any burden? No. Even when you have the best plan, the best insurance, it's still probably going to be difficult, but if we can reduce that and make it a little easier, you're going to be grateful that you have those benefits and you have those services.

Nic Nielsen: [00:20:11] We've both seen the impact that a long term care event has on the caregiver and if there is a plan in place, it's a lot better than to see what the people go through that don't have a plan, and they're doing everything themselves because the caregiver just gets worn down. They need that respite.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:20:29] That's right. There's serious caregiver burnout. There really is. If there's not a plan and even when there is a plan and you've got an informal, unpaid family member providing that care, if they're doing that all throughout the day, they're not taking care of themselves. It's just just not going to happen. So we want to protect the family. We want to protect the finances.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:20:47] Okay. Number eight.

Nic Nielsen: [00:20:48] Number eight. Yes.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:20:50] Market timing and liquidity. If you have a policy, you don't have to worry about if the stock market is up, if it's down, if it's sideways when you need care because you have guarantees, right? Going back to that, those guarantees and the predictability. We have guaranteed amount of income coming in to pay for that care no matter the market timing. Okay. It's coming in. If you're self-funding, you need to figure out do I have liquidity? Can I quickly access my money if I need care because I'm going to have to pull money out? Is that going to be out of my investments in the stock market? What if the stock market's down? Oh, that's an awful time to pull money out. If we're choosing to self-fund, I advise people and their advisors to come up with a plan of where is this money going to come from? An advisor should really have like an asset identification form that tells people where the funds for care will be found and let's sign this and we might have like an A, B or C plan, right? Okay, we're going to start in this fund and then we're going to pull from here and then we're going to pull from here, but at least we've identified it and we have a plan of what we're going to do.

Nic Nielsen: [00:21:59] I love that, Kelly.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:22:00] Number nine - control. A policy helps you stay in control of your care options so you can choose where you want to receive care, and you don't have to depend on the government. The last thing people want to do is have to depend on the government to be able to provide care for you. It's going to allow us to choose what kind of care we want, where we want to receive care, whether that's in our home, a family member's home, assisted living, right? We're staying in control of our care options. I want to just slightly touch on Medicaid here. I mentioned the government. Medicaid does pay for care, but you have to have low income and low assets. We're spending down to those state limits and applicants are also subject to a five year look back period. So this means there's a penalty period if you've transferred assets in the last five years. If you have, you're going to need to wait an amount of time until Medicaid steps in. We don't want to have to depend on Medicaid. We're losing control. We're depending on a source to provide care and to pay for care in a place most likely we don't want to be because most often it's a nursing home. So we want to stay in control of our care, be able to choose where we receive care, and having a policy allows you to do that because you have these resources, guaranteed resources coming in. What about self funding? You may be able to stay in control of your care options, but what if you run out of money? That's when Medicaid steps in and tells you where you're going to receive care. So control is important.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:23:25] Number ten, Nic - legacy. A policy allows you to leave a legacy to your heirs. Would you rather spend down your estate or be able to pass it to your family? I guarantee you, almost every single person, if not everyone's going to want to say "no, no, I don't want to spend down everything I have." If I have loved ones, I want to be able to give them something. So insurance gives family freedom so they can use the insurance company's money and don't have to write a big check every month. If your family has to write a check, let's say $5,000 to $10,000 a month, are they going to skimp on care because they don't want you to run out of money to pay for care and or to make sure that they secure their inheritance? You know, this is a real thing and it happens often. I'd like to tell a story about another long term care insurance specialist that I know. She told a story of a female client of hers from 20 years ago, and I think it's really applicable here. We'll call this client Shirley, okay? Shirley was very wealthy, about $30 million in assets. This agent visited Shirley at her beautiful home and said, "Shirley, you know, why do you want this policy? Most people with your kind of wealth would just pay out of pocket for care." Shirley said. "I've accumulated a lot of wealth and do you know how many eyes I have on that wealth? A lot! A lot of eyes are on my checkbook." She said. "I love my kids. I adore them and my grandkids. When it comes to needing care, I want to make sure I get the very best care where I want it, and I don't want them skimping on care because they're trying to preserve their inheritance." Ouch! Right? Money can make people do crazy things, and so if we want to preserve our legacy, we have to come up with a plan to be able to preserve that legacy, and a policy can help preserve that legacy. If we're self-funding, your assets and income are on the line because there's not a backstop. We don't have that security of a policy. So those are the ten, Nic. Those are the ten considerations.

Nic Nielsen: [00:25:25] Those are great!

Kelly Augspurger: [00:25:26] When self-funding and long term care insurance. And like I said in the beginning, it's not often all or nothing, right? There's often a combination of both insurance and self-funding.

Nic Nielsen: [00:25:35] And something is better than nothing.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:25:37] Yeah, absolutely.

Nic Nielsen: [00:25:39] You know, if you can only afford to get a policy that has three, four, $5,000 a month coverage, that's awesome. Like you shouldn't feel like, "oh, if I can't get $8,000 a month, I'm not going to get anything."

Kelly Augspurger: [00:25:50] That's right.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:25:50] The three, 4 or 5. You can add on more later potentially, but get something because it allows you to do, you know, all these things you're talking about potentially leave a legacy. The surviving spouse potentially doesn't have to minimize their lifestyle, right?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:26:03] Yeah.

Nic Nielsen: [00:26:04] That hedge between the big policy that has all the bells and whistles and nothing is huge, so start somewhere.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:26:10] That's right and such a great point. Most people aren't buying, you know, robust policies with $8,000 a month for five years and shared benefits, and every rider. Most people can't afford that. So it's like, okay, what is a combination of meaningful and affordable? And that's going to be different for every client, right? So let's come up with something that's both to be able to offer that protection to your family and your finances, and typically we can find that combination.

Nic Nielsen: [00:26:38] And I think you brought up a lot of great points about why someone should really take a deep dive into purchasing long term care insurance. Who is not a good fit for a long term care insurance?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:26:48] Yeah, and I think this is just as important as who it is a good fit for and what things are to consider when we have insurance. But people that are not going to be a good fit for long term care insurance are people that are in poor health or need care now. We talked about traditional a little bit and hybrid and there's different really health qualifications that go around. Do you qualify or not? I thoroughly health pre-screened my clients, Nic, before we even have a conversation and really dive deep. So health is important, although I will tell you, there's actually even an immediate care annuity that's coming out where if you need care now, you can get coverage. To help fill in a gap if you have a gap in what you need to pay for. So but typically, when we're talking about traditional long term care insurance and even hybrid policies, health matters. So we can't be on our deathbed or severely need care now. Health is important. Also, typically over the age of 79, although we do have a max of 85 in some situations to be able to get coverage. But again, it goes back to health, health matters. If clients don't have reliable or decent income or even assets to protect, it's probably not going to be a good fit. Typically, I'd say if we have low income, if we've got just Social Security or we're on SSI, it's not going to be affordable for you and you're probably going to be Medicaid likely. So you're going to have to use your income and assets that you do have to spend down, and then you're going to have to rely on Medicaid unless you have family that can pay for care for you or help provide care for you.

Nic Nielsen: [00:28:22] Any other considerations that people should think about to plan for their care to live well?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:28:27] Yeah, in my opinion, every person over the age of 50 needs a plan for extended care. I didn't say everybody needs a policy, but everybody needs a plan. So in that plan, we're going to identify who's going to provide care. Is it going to be family? Is it going to be professionals? Is it going to be a combination? Where do I ideally want to receive care? Is that at home? Is it in a family member's home? Is it in an assisted living community? And then how am I going to pay for care? And then like we've talked about all episode here, insurance can help pay for that plan, and maybe it's a combination, right? It's likely a combination of insurance and self funding. So those are things that I think people really need to consider when planning for care to live well.

Nic Nielsen: [00:29:08] Kelly, I believe that probably all of your audience has completely fallen in love with you and the things that you've said, and they're probably thinking to themselves, "how do I get more Kelly in my life? How on earth do I contact her?" How do people get in touch with you?

Kelly Augspurger: [00:29:20] Alright, Nic, find me on our website: www.SteadfastAgents.com (with an S) or on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn quite a bit, and so you can see me on there and we can connect also on Instagram steadfast agents. But our website and LinkedIn are great places to make connection with me. Nic, what about you? Thank you for your time with me today. Where can people find more information about you and how you help people as a Certified Financial Planner?

Nic Nielsen: [00:29:45] Thanks, Kelly. Our website is probably the best place to start. It's KnowMyPlan.com. I'm also on LinkedIn like you and Instagram at Know My Plan, so feel free to connect with me on any of those services.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:29:56] Fantastic! Nic, thanks so much for being my guest co-host today. Always appreciate time with you. Have a fabulous day!

Nic Nielsen: [00:30:03] Go play some pickleball.

Kelly Augspurger: [00:30:04] That's right. Get out there! Bye Nic.

Nic Nielsen: [00:30:06] Stay healthy. See you, Kelly.