LTC insurance is outrageously expensive now if you can even get it.
Hmmmm...yet you still read the article.
Some things may be "dated" but other points in the article remain relevant.
This was my company retirement. My mistake was not to start my own separate retirement. I did not realize it was a "closed" account until I was a few years away from retirement and there was a lot of money in it. Two guys I worked with started separate accounts and I should have looked into doing that when they did. I will start drawing on it next month. Mutual funds are somewhat safer than just buying separate stocks, but there is a good chunk of my money gone. I have been tempted to just cash it out even with the high tax burden at least I won't loose it all. At this point the mutual fund is about 55% of my total retirement money. Like I said before I can survive without the mutual fund, but I will be much more secure with it.
Yep it is, the reason is long term care is expensive and as @OneEyedDiva 's list says most of us will need it.
Cashing it out is probably Not a good idea. If it's money you don't need right now, let it ride....the stock markets always seem to recover. It may take some time...no one knows how long it takes to make a recovery, but that's better than stressing over the "short term".
I hope that's the case with us. We took out a LTC policy about 20 years ago, and have paid thousands in premiums....which go up a little more each year. The cost of good elder care....at home, or in a facility is getting ridiculous....unless you just go to a State Medicaid facility...where the care is minimal.
But if you need it, like all Insurance you need it.
We took out a LTC policy over 20 years ago with Transamerica it started at $100 a day with 5% increase each year. 2 years for me and 3 for my wife in 2014 it had gone to paying $208 a day.
Statistics mean something to insurers ..in fact they can tell you in a normal year how many of us will die .
As @Don M. pointed out..cashing out now is probably not a good idea, especially if you don't really need the money now. It's the classic, buy high sell low scenario, which is a way many people wind up losing money in the market. It is unfortunate that you didn't start your own individual account. Right now, even if you had, chances are that portfolio would be down too. The market is down...period. Been there...done that more than once and I just wait for it to rebound.
It's not like LTC insurance pays everything or forever.
Ours does .
RJ...that's the ticket. For so many years financial analysts scared people into thinking they had to have a least a million dollars to retire comfortably. More recently I've seen articles that are more realistic mentioning the possibilities for those of us who don't have that much. One is living at, or if possible, below your means. Another change is they used to preach that the best retirement move was that you had to wait until full retirement age to take social security. I'm seeing more articles lately in which analysts admit that isn't always true and in some instances taking SS early can be more beneficial.
When I first started reading investment magazines like Money and Kiplinger, which I subscribed to decades ago, the million dollar figure was used often, either by outright saying that's what people needed or using that figure as an example when giving sample calculations. Then when I started reading various articles online I found the same thing until fairly recently. I always felt that those types of articles could act to discourage, rather than motivate people who felt there is no way they can ever attain that figure. I do remember once that Money did an article on people who managed to have comfortable retirements on a lot less than the 80% of final salary figure, also often recommended. I never personally spoke with an advisor about how much I would need because I'm a self taught investor and manage my own portfolio. I'm also a perfect example of not needing a million.
I think the key phrase is - "if you don't need it".
