Estate Planning

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on the elderly, particularly those in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. This has raised questions about how the virus has influenced the costs and provision of long-term care insurance, which covers care in facilities and sometimes at home as well. If you have a long-term care insurance policy, you may wonder how it is affected by the pandemic. If you don’t have a policy, you may wonder if the pandemic will make it more difficult to get one. An article by US News and World Report, examines issues with long-term care insurance that have arisen in the last few months, including the following: Qualifying for insurance. It is already more difficult to qualify for long-term care insurance the older you get. Because older individuals are at a higher risk for coronavirus, this can affect your long-term care application as well….

The COVID-19 pandemic has sent unemployment to its highest levels since the Great Depression, and older workers have been particularly hard hit, with one in five over age 55 now out of work, according to one estimate. Many people continue to work beyond retirement age, either by choice or out of necessity, at the same time that they receive Social Security benefits. Other older workers are now being forced to take their benefits early after losing their jobs (although doing so permanently reduces the amount beneficiaries can receive). If you are already receiving Social Security, are you also eligible for full unemployment benefits? Until recently, the answer was not necessarily. Many states reduced unemployment benefits of those receiving Social Security retirement benefits by up to 50 percent, something called the “Social Security offset.” But after AARP and the National Unemployment Law Project pushed to have these laws overturned, this is…