The author is assistant vice president and long-term care specialist with National HealthCare Corporation. She is also a recipient of the LIFE Foundation’s 2006 realLIFEstories Client Service Award.

Having worked in the long-term care (LTC) industry for the past 18 years, first as a nursing home administrator and then as an LTC insurance agent, I thought I was absolutely prepared for everything. After all, I assist clients daily with the realization that someday they might need long term care.

It’s been another matter to experience what I do for a living when the one who needs the long-term care services is someone I love. Seven years ago, my father had a stroke. He recovered his ability to function daily with the assistance of therapy. However, four years after the stroke, more debilitating symptoms began. He was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy. For the past three years he has needed assistance with all of his activities of daily living.

His wife has assistance seven days a week with his care that is paid for by his LTC insurance policy. You must understand that my father is a total care patient – he needs assistance with getting out of bed, transferring to a wheelchair, bathing, dressing, feeding himself – well, you get the picture. I am convinced that without the daily assistance from his fabulous caregiver, he would have long ago been in a long-term healthcare facility.

Seeing my father’s health decline has been quite difficult. He is no longer able to have a conversation with me – but we watch old westerns on TV together and share a laugh.

It has been, to say the least, a difficult journey emotionally. However, the financial burden is nonexistent. I can’t imagine having both of these issues to deal with – one is quite enough.

Knowing what I know, I made sure my family was prepared financially for these care needs, and you should too. I encourage you to support those who might be your primary caregivers by purchasing long-term care insurance. Preparing to maintain your independence and quality of life should be an essential part of your financial plan.

Not only is LTC insurance about asset protection – even though that is what most consumers think about when discussing the product. The support of your primary caregiver is an important feature as well. Being a primary caregiver can be backbreaking. The emotional and physical toll of caring for someone 24 hours a day is exhausting.

As you plan for retirement, you MUST accept responsibility for your healthcare needs. Failing to accept that your health could fail and you could be dependent on someone for daily assistance is like leaving your house unlocked while you go on vacation. Would you consider leaving your house unlocked? Then why not consider your long term care needs?

As a general rule, I like to keep my personal and business lives separate (good for my mental health). But sometimes that’s unavoidable. This is one of those times.

The vast majority of Americans know that life insurance is something most people need (93% in the LIFE Foundation’s last survey). Yet most Americans either have no life insurance at all or less than they need. Why? Because they don’t think “it” will happen to them. Sure, some people die before their time. But me? Nah. Won’t happen.

To help people understand how dangerous this kind of thinking can be, we at the LIFE Foundation tell lots of realLIFEstories. These are true stories of everyday people who DID die before their time, but who had the foresight to include life insurance in their financial plans.

We also share statistics. Do you know how many adult Americans die in the prime of their life each year? 550,000. Well, behind statistics like this one are real lives … lives that ended much sooner than they should have.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve experienced two cruel reminders of just how fleeting life can be. I lost two dear friends, both 44 years old. One died of cancer (her third bout), the other of a massive heart attack that struck ruthlessly, with no prior warning. Each was married. One left behind two young children, the other, a 10-year-old daughter.

People die before their time, all the time. And none of us knows who the unlucky ones will be. The job of the LIFE Foundation is not to scare people into buying life insurance. But it is our job to remind people of the facts. And sometimes the facts are cold, hard and all too real.

People need to acknowledge that the future is unknowable and account for that in their financial plans. My friends did, and that’s one silver lining their loves ones and friends can seek solace in at this very painful time. God bless.

Have you experienced the loss of a parent? I have lost both of mine. I’ve been thinking back a lot lately to that difficult time when my dad died—2008 marks the ten-year anniversary of his death. The worst part for me, aside from the day when I realized he was gone forever, was seeing his health decline suddenly. One moment, he was criss-crossing the country in his RV, living his retirement the way he always wanted. The next moment, he was so incapacitated he couldn’t go to the bathroom without someone’s help.

Of all the things that must have been going through his mind at that moment, my dad expressed to me how humiliated he was that his two daughters, my adult sisters, had to clean him after he went to the bathroom.

My dad didn’t live too long in this condition. But I wonder how my siblings and I would have coped with his long-term care needs if he had remained in such poor health for several months, even years.

It’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but people really need to plan for the likelihood that they or a loved one, eventually, will need help with what the industry calls “activities of daily living,” such as bathing or dressing. About 70 percent of us who reach age 65, in fact, will require some kind of long-term care.

November is National Long-term Care Awareness Month, which makes now a perfect time to think about your long-term care needs and those of your loved ones.

My father probably thought that his health insurance or Medicare would pick up most of long-term care tab. That’s a mistake most people make. Health insurance really only pays for doctor and hospital bills.

If you develop a chronic illness or become disabled and are unable to care for yourself for an extended period of time, you’ll need long-term care services. But these services aren’t cheap. Full-time nursing home care averages $69,000 to $78,000 per year and eight hours per day of home health care can cost $43,000 to $70,000 annually, according to a 2007 Metlife market survey.

Ten years ago, healthcare may not have been as expensive as it is today, but my dad’s retirement savings wouldn’t have lasted very long. Only when he had spent down almost all of his hard-earned assets would he have then qualified for the government program Medicaid.

That’s the scenario that he faced because he didn’t have a long-term care plan in place or long-term care insurance, a.k.a LTCi. LTCi offers many options and features. Today, most policies will cover any number of care preferences and settings, from nursing homes and assisted living facilities, to home aides.

My dad was proud to a fault and fiercely independent. He had always said to me that he never wanted to be a burden on us kids when he got older, but that’s just where he was headed. LTCi would have given him options and the opportunity to maintain his independence.

If you’d like to learn more about LTCi, check out the long-term care section of LIFE’s website, and talk to an insurance professional who can help you design a long-term care plan.

The author is a 2008 LIFE Lessons Scholarship recipient. Each year, the LIFE Foundation awards scholarships to college students impacted by the death of a parent. While the scholarship is helping the Western Carolina University sophomore fulfill her dream of attending college, her story underscores the need for parents to include life insurance in their college-funding plans. Click here to view her scholarship contest video entry.

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