Category: Orlando Senior Living
The Best Kept Secret is Out of the Bag – Your cash value is guaranteed in the unlikely event that your annuity company can’t pay the claim.
OK, here’s an observational quiz: What’s the one most visible sign posted in banks everywhere? And no, I don’t mean the “We Think Your Money is Our Money” sign, or the one that says, “If You Don’t Need Money, We’ll Loan It to You”.
Answer: “FDIC Insured”. It’s everywhere. On the doors, on the table where you make out your deposit ticket, next to the Tellers. I heard that one bank even staples it to the Tellers’ foreheads. You think?
So, did you know that the Insurance/Annuity Industry also has guarantees on its cash values? You didn’t? Why not?
Because we were not allowed to tell you about the Florida Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association (FLHIGA) until July 1, 2010. Since it is now after July 1, 2010, I can tell you, sort of. Actually, I still can’t tell you this unless you ask me. All I am doing today is telling you that a law was just passed that allows us to tell you this – if you ask.
If you wonder why we had to keep this secret, maybe you should look at the lobbying power of our beloved and trusted banking industry. Now they can’t hide behind the idea that they are the only “safe” place to put your money, as they offer you their absurdly low rates.
This foolishness is kind of the banking lobby forcing a “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell Policy” on their competitors.
But, if you do ask, I can tell you that, with new rules that are also part of this law, the FLHIGA will guarantee cash values on Annuity Contracts up to $250,000. But, remember, I can only tell you if you are curious as to the safety of your Nest Egg. If you don’t care, if you don’t ask, you’ll just have to wonder. I can’t tell you.
Now the cat is out of the bag. I tell you about it. If you ask me.
Blog Courtesey of:
Tom Willoughby, JD
The Retirement Rescuer
tmw@retirementrescuer.com
407.977.9171
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
To schedule your tour and five-star dining experience please contact us at 407-732-5800
The Health “Reform” Act is a take-over of 15% of our economy. It can’t be done overnight. It phases in over the next 4 years, with most of the “budget buster” provisions in latter years. That’s to make the numbers “work”, as if an extra $1 trillion in our budget “works”. But here are some dates for parts of the Act to kick in.
In 2010
1. The $250 Medicare Part D Donut Hole Rebate is paid to some, which is to help them to cover some of the $4,000+ “hole” in coverage.
2. No more lifetime coverage restrictions, where only a certain amount will be paid by the insurance company over a lifetime for claims.
3. A national High Risk Pool is to be set up to cover those who could not otherwise get coverage.
4. You can cover your kid up to age 26.
5. Tax credits available to businesses with fewer than 25 employees that will pay for their health insurance.
In 2011
1. The “CLASS Act” is to begin taking in Long Term Care premiums. Maybe.
2. A surcharge will kick in for Medicare Part B, costing us more.
3. Medicare will pay for some preventive care services.
4. A 50% discount starts for some drugs under Part B coverage.
5. Health Savings Accounts and Advantage to lose key benefits.
In 2013
1. Part D Donut Hole begins to close.
2. Tax increase in the form of increasing from 7.5% to 10% of AGI, the limit over which we can deduct unreimbursed medical expense.
3. Higher income taxpayers pay 2.35% (up from 1.45%) Medicare tax and a 3.8% Medicare tax on unearned income.
In 2014
1. Coverage required for everyone, or face a fine (Hello, IRS)
2. Insurers must accept ALL applicants, dispite disability, illness & medical history.Will this put insurers out of the business?
3. A 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board starts recommending ways to reduce Medicare spending. Rationing?
4. Goodbye Medicare Advantage Plans, as the law demands that companies must use 85% of premiums to pay claims. This is a not-so-subtle form of price controls, which only succeed in putting businesses out of business.
As Bette Davis once said, “Put on your seat belt, boys, it’s going to be a rough ride.”
Blog Courtesey of:
Tom Willoughby, JD
The Retirement Rescuer
tmw@retirementrescuer.com
407.977.9171
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
To schedule your tour and five-star dining experience please contact us at 407-732-5800
When shopping for an assisted living community for your loved one, sticker shock is a common condition. But is it true that assisted living costs more than living at home?
The true value of living in an assisted living community is quality of life. Not only is assisted living financially equal to living at home, it’s such a dramatically different way of life. Most people underestimate how much money they spend on food each month, and forget about all the miscellaneous expenses that crop up. Mentally, they simply add up rent or the mortgage and utilities, guess on how much they spend on eating, and come up with a figure that’s not accurate.
Assisted living costs include all basic living expenses such as rent, utilities, and food, but also include 24-hour security services, housekeeping, health monitoring services, lawn care, property taxes and insurance, trash removal, repairs and maintenance, and the most frequent things people forget to include—social activities and entertainment.
In fact, many seniors living at home cut back on entertainment as a way to save money.
With a senior living at home, the monthly budget usually has a blank space next to social and entertainment. Look at what your mom or dad are spending on socialization and entertainment—nothing—and that’s not a good thing.
Those senior social activities are important for all seniors to keep them physically and mentally sharp, and are the difference between surviving and thriving. But they may be especially important for many women whose retirement isn’t very relaxing because their workload actually increases with their retired husbands or partners at home all the time.
Sons and daughters need to take a hard look at their parents’ current lifestyle: “Do both people get to retire in this house? How did mom’s life change when Dad retired? Did it get better or did it get worse? We’re still dealing with an age group where moms didn’t get to retire, so we’re dealing with quality of life.”
After dealing with the initial sticker shock and touring an assisted living facility, most clients change their minds and realize assisted living is a great value.
These are the golden years, but they aren’t always so golden. At an assisted living community, people can have a quality of life where other people cater to them so they can enjoy life.
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
To schedule your tour and five-star dining experience please contact us at 407-732-5800
On Firday, May 21, 2010 area seniors joined SHINE program volunteers at Oakmonte Village for a birthday party – a party to celebrate those who will soon be turning 65 and joining the Medicare program as well as many who have already celebrated their 65th and were seeking updated information on Medicare.
The SHINE program, Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders is a program of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. SHINE Program Liaison, Heather Fogle, MSW and her team of volunteers were available to not only provide information on Medicare but review existing health insurance coverage plans of those in attendance in an effort to ensure they were receiving all available benefits.
SHINE volunteer, John Vassallo gave an informative presenation entitled ”Medicare 101″. Information included an overview of Original Medicare, Medigap Supplemental Insurance, Medicare Advantage and other plans, Prescription Drug Coverage, How to get extra help with drug costs, Enrollment periods, and Medicaid.
Helping John was program volunteer coordinator, Geri Harris and volunteer Sally Mitchell as well as several other SHINE volunteers.
Oakmonte Village’s own Chef Rolf Nettesheim created an exquisite chocolate and peanut butter birthday cake for the occasion. It was scrumptious and enjoyed by all!
For more information the the SHINE Program or if you have questions about Medicare, Medicaid or other health insurance related topics, please contact a SHINE volunteer at 407-514-1800 or visit their website at www.sraflorida.org.
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
To schedule your tour and five-star dining experience please call us at 407-732-5800.
By Emily Brandon
U.S. News and World Report
Posted: April 23, 2010
Divorce after age 50 can severely disrupt your retirement plans. Access to pensions, retirement account balances, and Social Security benefits are all impacted by both marriage and divorce. U.S. News asked Janice Green, a family law attorney in Austin, Texas and author of the new book Divorce After 50: Your Guide to the Unique Legal and Financial Challenges, how a late-life divorce typically affects retirement assets. Excerpts:
What should you do before a divorce to make sure you are still able to retire?
The first important thing to do is to get a summary plan description of the employment-related retirement plans and see what those say about the pension and 401(k). The next step, after you know what you’ve got, is you’re going to have to value it. Let’s say husband has $100,000 in his 401(k) account and its all marital property and he’s 55 years old. That money is obviously not the same in value as $100,000 in a CD somewhere or in a money market account because you can’t get it without penalty and paying taxes on it. But we don’t know when you’re going to take it. We don’t know what tax bracket you are going to be in. The closer and the older people are the less speculation there is in reducing that 401(k) by some factor of estimated income taxes that you would owe if you were to pull that money out.
How do ex-spouses typically split 401(k) and IRA balances?
You can award it all to one spouse or you can divvy it up. If a husband has been paying into that 401(k) or IRA prior to marriage then his separate estate would have a claim to part of that retirement accpimt. In some states they look at the balance on the date of the marriage as his property and everything after that is subject to the division. It’s really wise to divide them by percentages so that it’s not dollar divisions. If you divide it by dollars and the market takes a plunge after the time you reach an agreement, that split is going to be affected. Let’s say the value of that account was $500,000 when they reached an agreement and dropped to $350,000 at the time it was divided up. If you have made an award to the wife of $250,000, the husband is going to get nailed because he is sitting there with $100,000, not $250,000. That can make people very unhappy. If there is an upswing in the market, in value, then you may want to allocate that.
What if you started saving for retirement before marriage?
If a husband had put in some money prior to marriage, contributed during marriage, and then there was a divorce, his separate estate has an interest in that retirement plan. You have to carve that out and value that part. It may not be that his entire account is marital property. There can be some tracing out of separate property within that pension plan. He may be putting in work time after the divorce before he reaches retirement age and that could be his separate estate’s interest.
What happens to a pension plan when you get divorced?
A spouse can buy out the non-participant spouse or give them a share of the benefits. Let’s assume the husband has earned the pension through his employment and the wife does not have her own pension. You could place a value on the pension and give it all to the husband and let the wife receive property of equal value. The usual way to achieve a value is though an actuarial analysis of all the elements of the pension plan. Or you could divide the pension by a court order that is 50/50 or some other division. She gets a percentage of whatever his benefit is. You are taking how much of the work time in that pension plan was linked to time during the marriage. A lot of people will opt for dividing the pension equally to avoid having to do an actuarial evaluation.
How does divorce affect spousal Social Security benefits?
They have to be married 10 years for one spouse to avail themselves of the other’s Social Security, if the spouse doesn’t have work credits that exceed half of her ex-husbands. If you’ve got a couple where they have been married for nine and a half or nine and a quarter years, I certainly would be unhappy if I were a spouse and missed getting eligibility for those types of benefits and I needed those benefits. I have slowed down divorces to ride out that eligibility time. I have had situations where the court allowed continuances. It is no skin off the Social Security check of the person that the work credit was created by. In the case of death, the benefit that you can claim is 100 percent of what the now deceased former spouse’s retirement check would be. It’s not limited to the most recent spouse or current spouse. If the guy had serial marriages of 10 year spans and none of his three wives have benefits that exceed his benefits, all three of them can withdraw 100 percent survivor’s benefits.
Oakmonte Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information call us at 407-732-5800 or visit our website www.oakmontevillage.com
A power of attorney is a very important estate planning tool, but in fact there are several different kinds of powers of attorney that can be used for different purposes. Before executing this crucial document, it is important to understand what your options are.
A power of attorney allows a person you appoint — your “attorney-in-fact” or agent — to act in your place for financial or other purposes when and if you ever become incapacitated or if you can’t act on your own behalf. There are four main types of powers of attorney.
- Limited. A limited power of attorney gives someone else the power to act in your stead for a very limited purpose. For example, a limited power of attorney could give someone the right to sign a deed to property for you on a day when you are out of town. It usually ends at a time specified in the document.
- General. A general power of attorney is comprehensive and gives your attorney-in-fact all the powers and rights that you have yourself. For example, a general power of attorney may give your attorney-in-fact the right to sign documents for you, pay your bills, and conduct financial transactions on your behalf. You could use a general power of attorney if you were not incapacitated, but still needed someone to help you with financial matters. A general power of attorney ends on your death or incapacitation unless you rescind it before then.
- Durable. A durable power of attorney can be general or limited in scope, but it remains in effect after you become incapacitated. Without a durable power of attorney, if you become incapacitated, no one can represent you unless a court appoints a conservator or guardian. A durable power of attorney will remain in effect until your death unless you rescind it while you are not incapacitated.
- Springing. Like a durable power of attorney, a springing power of attorney can allow your attorney-in-fact to act for you if you become incapacitated, but it does not become effective until you are incapacitated. If you are using a springing power of attorney, it is very important that the standard for determining incapacity and triggering the power of attorney be clearly laid out in the document itself.
Regardless of what type of power of attorney you use, it is important to think carefully about who will be your attorney-in-fact. Your attorney-in-fact will have a lot of control over your finances, and it is crucial that you trust him or her completely. For more information on choosing an attorney-in-fact, click here.
While many pre-packaged do-it-yourself power of attorney forms are available, it is a good idea to have an attorney draft the form specifically for you. There are many issues to consider and one size does not fit all. Contact your elder law attorney to learn more.
Article Courtesy of:
Kathleen Flammia, P.A. Articles
Elder Law/Trusts/Wills/Estate Planning
2707 West Fairbanks Avenue
Suite 110
Winter Park, FL 32789
Phone (407) 478-8700
Fax (407) 478-8701
kflammia@aol.com
Oakmont Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information contact us at 407-732-5800.
Julie Fernandez, Director of Marketing
Source: Atalantic Sosnoff; ASC Company Research.
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
The most widely used indicator of the overall condition of the stock market, a price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue-chip stocks, primarily industrials. The 30 stocks are chosen by the editors of The Wall Street Journal (which is published by Dow Jones &Company), a practice that dates back to the beginning of the century. The Dow was officially started by Charles Dow in 1896, at which time it consisted of only 11 stocks. The Dow is computed using a price-weighted indexing system, rather than the more common market-cap-weighted indexing system. Simply put, the editors at WSJ add up the prices of all the stocks and then divide by the number of stocks in the index. (In actuality, the divisor is much higher today in order to account for stock splits that have occurred in the past.)
S&P 500:
Widely regarded as the best single gauge of the U.S. equities market, this world-renowned index includes a representative sample of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy. Although the S&P 500 focuses on the large-cap segment of the market, with over 80% coverage of U.S. equities, it is also an ideal proxy for the total market. Performance results are derived from the return of the S&P 500 Index including the reinvestment of dividends and interest and does not include a reduction of fees.
Information courtesy of
Joe Kelly
Financial Advisor,
MorganStanley SmithBarney
250 S. Park Avenue
Suite 500
Winter Park, FL 32789
 407 740-4972
Oakmont Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information on Oakmonte Village please call 407.732.5800.
Master the Household Paper Chase
Now that tax time has passed, what to do with that foot-high stack of last year’s statements? And how about those “vital documents” you had drafted, only to throw them in your bottom desk drawer?While you may be tempted to box everything up and condemn it to a basement shelf, you know better. Consider the following means of neatly and securely organizing essential papers—and lessening the chances of your last will and testament being sold at your next garage sale along with that perfect set of National Geographic magazines.
Category #1: Keep It Forever
Documents in this group include birth and death certificates, marriage licenses and divorce decrees, vehicle titles, the deed to your home, and your Social Security card. They’re best stored in a fireproof box.
Category #2: Put a Time Stamp on It
These documents are difficult—if not impossible—to recreate. Chief among them: your last seven years of state and federal tax returns, plus their supporting documents. Lest this portion of your papers balloon out of control, make it a rule to always let go of those Year 8 documents as you make room for the current set. Headed for the shredder this season: 2003.
Other papers in this category include receipts for major purchases (especially those under warranty) and home improvement records, which you’ll need when you sell your house. It’s also wise to hold on to annual brokerage and retirement account statements for at least the past three years.
Category #3: Shred It Now
Good news: utility bills, credit card statements and even monthly bank statements are great shredder fodder once paid or reconciled (unless you’re tracking home-office expenses or other tax-related transactions). In addition, shred credit card offers and any other mail containing personal information.
Though a paperless household is still really the stuff of science fiction, these categories can at least get your files out of sight and into logical order.
To help you get your household records in order, ask us for a complimentary Family Records Organizer. The three-ring binder can help you and your family gather and store important documents, including account statements, tax information, insurance policies, legal documents and other records.
Courtesy of
Joe Kelly
Financial Advisor
MorganStanley SmithBarney
250 S. Park Avenue
Suite 500
Winter Park, FL 32789
407 740-4972
Oakmont Village is a new 25-acre luxury senior living community in the heart of prestigious Lake Mary, Florida. Ideally located for ease and convenience, Oakmonte Village is within easy reach of many local Orlando amenities such as parks, walking trails, lakes, and more.
Oakmonte Village offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenance. Residents at Oakmonte enjoy amenities such as card and game rooms, fitness center, movie theatre, on-site banking, gift shop, pharmacy, outdoor swimming pool, full-service concierge and a diverse array of culturally rich programming. Oakmonte’s active lifestyle is supported by concierge physician services, rehabilitative and home care services as well as a continuum of care through our soon-to-open assisted living and memory care community. All without any entrance fees.
For more information call 407.732.5800 or visit our website at www.oakmontevillage.com
Social Security’s Retirement Estimator is now available for people who have signed up for Medicare but have not yet signed up for Social Security because they are delaying retirement. The popular calculator allows you to project what your monthly Social Security benefit will be based on your actual work record. Previously, “Medicare only” beneficiaries could not use the estimator and had to contact a Social Security office to get an estimate of their retirement benefits.
While the calculator requires inputting personal information like your Social Security number, date of birth and mother’s maiden name, it is tied to your actual Social Security earnings record, so you don’t need to manually input years of earnings records. Once your information is input, you can compare different retirement options and see how additional work might affect your benefits.
Because more and more people are delaying retirement, the Social Security Administration decided to expand the calculator to those individuals. It is also planning on making the estimator available in Spanish later this year. You cannot use the calculator if you do not have enough Social Security credits at this time to qualify for benefits or you are already receiving Social Security benefits.
For more information on the calculator, click here. To access the Retirement Estimator, click here.
For more information on Social Security, click here.
Give your loved one the lifestyle they need and deserve. Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenence – at a price more affordable than remaining at home. Our active lifestyle is backed by rehabilitative services and home care as well as a continuum of care through our future assisted living and memory care community. Oakmonte Village offers all inclusive services with no buy-in demand. Call us at 407.732.5800 to schedule dinner and a tour.
Searching for Security
How to tell whether a continuing-care community will be able to keep its financial promises
By KELLY GREENE, The Wall Street Journal
For years, the primary selling point of continuing-care retirement communities has been security: the knowledge that a person or couple could settle—and remain—in a development, whatever the changes to their health.
The Journal Report
See the complete Encore report.
Today, though, with parts of the continuing-care market in financial trouble, residents and would-be residents are grappling with a fundamental question: Can continuing-care developments keep their promise?
The picture currently isn’t pretty. As the economic downturn has made it tougher for potential new residents to sell their existing homes and move in, a number of individual communities and one of the country’s largest developers of such facilities, Erickson Retirement Communities, have sought bankruptcy protection.
Some projects have been abandoned mid-construction. Others are trimming staff, reducing the number of meals served or delaying the opening of assisted-living or skilled-nursing units.
Would-be residents, meanwhile, are discovering the difficulties in looking beyond the amenities that make many continuing-care developments so attractive at first glance—upscale housing, fine dining, fitness centers—and digging into a community’s finances.
“One should be careful, as with any investment, to know the fine print,” says Nan Rideout, age 65, a state-government retiree in Chapel Hill, N.C., who with her husband has been scrutinizing continuing-care communities and their finances up and down the East Coast.
For instance, “CCRCs will advertise that they will guarantee you life occupancy even if your financial circumstances change,” Ms. Rideout says. But “the fine print [says] they can go after your estate when you’re dead to recoup money they advanced on your behalf. How would that be calculated? How much interest are they going to charge your estate for that? Those details I’ve never seen spelled out.”
If you’re considering a move to one of these communities—and are trying to determine how the finances work and whether a development will remain solvent for as long as you might need it—here’s what to look for.
A good first stop is two industry groups that have developed dozens of questions to help with your research. At carf.org, the Web site for the group that accredits continuing-care communities, you can download the “Consumer Guide to Understanding Financial Performance and Reporting in Continuing Care Retirement Communities” by clicking on “Free Publications” and scrolling down to “Special reports.” The site also has a more general section titled, “How to select a continuing care retirement community,” which you can find by clicking “Consumer Services” and then “Choosing a provider.”
To get another free guide, “The Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Guidebook for Consumers,” go to aahsa.org, the Web site for the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, and click on “Consumers.” Scroll down to “Choosing Services,” and click on “The Continuing Care Retirement Community: A Guidebook for Consumers.”
Next, get a copy of the facility’s audited financial statements. If you get any resistance at all when you make this request, it should serve as a big red flag, says Susanne Matthiesen, managing director of aging services for Carf International, which oversees the Continuing Care Accreditation Commission.
Look for the facility’s “days of cash on hand,” which reflects how long it could operate with no additional revenue—a good indication of financial stability. The community should be able to provide the figure, but to calculate it yourself, add together these two lines from the report to get the numerator: “unrestricted current cash and investments” plus “unrestricted noncurrent cash and investments.” To get the denominator, find “operating expenses,” then subtract “depreciation” and “amortization,” then divide the result by 365. Finally, divide the numerator by the denominator.
The result is the number of days the facility could operate with the cash it has at its disposal. Accredited communities with one campus or development average 306 days of cash on hand; those with multiple sites average 281 days.
There are other numbers to consider, including the facility’s cash-to-debt ratio, which should be about 35%, says Jill Collins, chief operating officer of Pacific Retirement Services in Medford, Ore., which runs 11 continuing-care communities.
She encourages people considering a facility to ask for its ratio calculations, along with how it stacks up against other places. Those doing well are in the 75th percentile or higher nationally, she says.
Other things to watch out for, according to Ms. Collins, include facilities that rely heavily on investment income, donations or entry fees, which may be a signal that the facility can’t support itself with income from operations, she says.
Even if you aren’t comfortable reading financial statements, you should ask for them anyway. “Give them to your tax guy if you’re not very financially savvy,” Ms. Collins says. “They should be able to give you any financial information you’re looking for. I hate to get into what we’re paying for lettuce, but we have benchmarks.”
You can also ask for any bond covenants—and whether the facility is meeting them. Typically, banks require 300 days of cash on hand and a minimum of 25% cash to debt, Ms. Collins adds.
Also keep in mind that if the facility you’re considering is part of a group, it’s worth asking about the financial health of the group’s other communities and whether your investment could be used to prop them up, Ms. Collins says.
If a community’s marketing staff can’t answer your questions about the facility’s financial condition, ask to speak to the chief financial officer, executive director or chief executive officer, Ms. Matthiesen says. Another option: Most facilities have a residents’ finance committee, so you could ask to speak to members of that group to get the information you need.
The ways in which residents buy into continuing-care developments also can affect a community’s finances.
In the so-called life-care model, residents pay a large upfront deposit (usually at least a few hundred thousand dollars) plus a monthly fee that generally stays the same no matter how much care they need. Typically, residents forfeit their deposit after living at the community a certain number of years.
With such a model, it’s particularly important to ask for actuarial analysis that shows “how there’s enough money in the kitty if everyone needs care 20 years from now,” says John Endicott, a resident of a life-care facility in Pomona, Calif., who helped write the accreditation commission’s consumer guide.
With the increasingly common “Type B” model, residents pay a smaller upfront deposit, some of which may be refundable if they move out or die, and pay larger monthly fees if they need to use assisted-living or skilled nursing care. With that model, you’ll need to consider whether you could afford higher monthly fees and whether you hold—or should obtain—long-term-care insurance that could help cover them.
Another potentially thorny issue: How would you, or your heirs, get your deposit back? Many places make you wait until the unit is resold, and you may have to pay a monthly fee until that happens. Ms. Rideout worries that this requirement creates a “disincentive for the [community] to use all available efforts to resell a unit”—particularly if it’s also marketing new units at the same time.
In addition, find out what happens if you run out of money. Many continuing-care communities have created a benevolence fund specifically to help residents who find themselves in that situation. But the contract’s fine print sometimes gives the facility the right to recoup any unpaid fees from your estate.
Ms. Greene is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau. She can be reached at
encore@wsj.com
Give your loved one the lifestyle they need and deserve. Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary offers resort style living and freedom from home maintenence – at a price more affordable than remaining at home. Our active lifestyle is backed by rehabilitative services and home care as well as a continuum of care through our future assisted living and memory care community. Oakmonte Village offers all inclusive services with no buy-in demand. Call us at 407.732.5800 to schedule dinner and a tour.
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Orlando Senior Living | Oakmonte Village July 13, 2010 | 
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