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Auntkiki Asked April 2013

Can the nursing home take life insurance policy I take out on mom?

I was just wondering if I take a life insurance policy out on my mom and she has to go in a NH can they it. I would be the policy holder not her.

pamstegma Apr 2016
Worrywort2, hubby is not insurable. The most you will get is burial insurance with a 2 year no-pay clause at an extremely high premium. For example, a guaranteed life policy for a 60 year old man is $148 a month and only pays $20,000 and only after two years of paying in.

Worrywort2 Apr 2016
My daughter wants to take a life insurance policy on my disabled husband. She wants to pay it so she can pay for funeral costs. She will be the beneficiary because she will lose her job. Can Medicare take the leftover funds that she will get when her dad dies. He is on disability through medicare and medicaid

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pamstegma Apr 2016
Decatur, I own the life insurance policy that covers my sister and I am the beneficiary. She lives in a group home on Medicaid. It is not a disqualifier.
It's an old policy from when she was an infant. My father was the owner and he transferred it to me. Not much, just enough to bury her.
Because she is disabled, there would be no way to get more insurance now. If you are retarded you are uninsurable. Same for heart attacks, cancer, and many other common conditions.

Decatur30033 Apr 2016
An Existing Insurance policy having cash value is a MEDICAID asset, subject to state recovery, and in fact a disqualification...

The Good news is that any existing Life Policy, including term & group (Death Benefit) over $50,000), can be converted into monthly payments to help cover LTC. This must be done properly,

Do not "surrender" the policy to the insurance company, because you will receive less value,

while they might try to convince you the policy is not "convertible:, that is untrue, a play on words, as it does not comply to a conversion within their line of product

This a MEDICAID approved option, and can be used to help with payments on private pay, stretching out assets.

Message me for info.

JessieBelle Mar 2016
You may need to ask yourself if she will need Medicaid anytime in the future. Is your sister the owner of the policy? I imagine she is since she's been paying on it. If she is the owner of the policy, then Medicaid will require her to sell the policy or to cash it in before she can qualify for Medicaid. If that is to be the fate of the policy, I don't know if you want to continue to invest money in it. Let us know a little more and someone may have a good answer for you.

Maryannvinacco1 Mar 2016
My sister is in a rehab nursing home and will remain there until her death. She has been paying on her life ins for many years, so does the home pay the bill now or is the family responsible?

diavalon12 Apr 2013
If you are taking out the insurance policy to cover last expenses and you/your mom cannoot take money early from the policy, in most states the policy would be exempt. Please do not hide this information from the medicaid office as they have ways of finding out about these policies as you must give social security numbers and you do not want the word fruad attached to the file. Contact a estate planning company for what you can and can not do in your state. Good Luck to you.

balexander9 Apr 2013
The tendency to spend much of the day sleeping isn't necessarily due to depression. My husband tends to want to sleep as much as possible when he is bored. Since his dementia prevents him from reading for more than a half hour at a time and he has difficulty following the story lines of most movies, he says he is tired whenever he has nothing to stimulate his mind. When he is at his adult day care program, he is awake from 6:30 in the morning when he gets up to 4:00 pm when the ambulette brings him back. However, when he is home all day, he often wants to go back to bed within an hour of eating breakfast in the morning. My husband has been taking medication for depression for years but I do not believe that this is not the main cause of his need to sleep so much now that he has dementia. I get sleepy when I am bored as well, although I am able to get myself mentally stimulated a lot better than a person with dementia. The trick is to find something for the person to do which interests him enough to keep him awake.

ferris1 Apr 2013
It sounds by your profile, your aunt is suffering not only dementia, but clinical depression. Get her to a psychiatrist or neurologist ASAP. The parts of the brain that deliver messages to other parts get cut off in dementia, so her wanting to just lie around is not because she is lazy or doing it on purpose. Sometimes a person with depression presents with real physical ailments like joint pain, tiredness, headaches, sleepiness, etc. Get her some help and you will begin to see an improvement. At 72 yrs. she still has a long way to go. As far as a life insurance policy, most all are cut in half once a person reaches between 70 - 85, with reductions larger after that. The premiums are really high. I am not even sure you could take one out on your aunt. Most insurance companies insure husbands and wives, but not nieces and aunts. If you want the policy to pay for her care, then you can buy a LTC policy for her, but at her age, again the premiums are going to be high. Also, one already diagnosed with dementia might be difficult to insure. The policy for yourself and your husband is a good one because you can probably expect to get Alzheimer's yourself. Unless you were adopted...

terrim Apr 2013
The insurance policy would be considered part of her property but something given to you specifically. So, no, they can't take it. Do NOT let them know you have it. When she dies, you will need to report her death to the company and obtain a copy of the death certificate as proof. You get the death certificate from the Department of Vital Records in your state so the nursing home would not get involved. The nursing home would be paid while she stays there. If she goes on Medicaid, do NOT mention to anyone that there is life insurance. They can and have grabbed insurance policies in the past to reimburse themselves for what they had to spend on her so do not mention it on any Medicaid applications and do not tell anyone, not even Mom, that you have it,

N1K2R3 Apr 2013
Two great things that I have learned from a good financial planner: Trustee- to-trustee transfer of assets= no taxation on the money being transferred. Another is the value of Life Insurance. 1) It is a private product. 2) The beneficiary does not have to pay taxes on the money he gets when the insured dies. The money belongs to the beneficiary, not a Funeral Home, not an Assisted Living Facility. Oh how they'd like to get their hands on that money.

spring049 Apr 2013
Only her assets count, not yours. If she is not the beneficiary on the policy you have nothing to worry about.

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