Awareness month faces commotion

John Hancock Long-Term Care Insurance and the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE) are trying to help organizers of the latest Long-Term Care Awareness Month campaign get consumers thinking.

The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) started the latest LTC planning awareness campaign Nov. 1, on a day when tens of thousands of people in and around New York were lining up to get gas for their generators, ten of thousands were lining up for food and supplies from Red Cross trailers, and hundreds of thousands of people were shivering in dark, cold homes without electricity.

The general elections then absorbed a great deal of media attention Tuesday.

Campaign backers are hoping some of that media attention will now focus on the importance of planning for old age.

Deb Newman, chair of LIFE’s board, noted in a statement that about 70 percent of people over age 65 may eventually need some form of long-term care (LTC).

“With the cost of care on the rise, it’s critical that people think about their care preferences and evaluate whether they are financially prepared,” Newman said. “Far too many people rely on personal savings, their retirement fund or even family members to step in when care is needed, but those strategies are rarely sustainable.

Hancock and other campaign backers helped AALTCI pay for an LTC planning awareness in Kiplinger’s Finance magazine.

Hancock also is supporting the awareness month campaign by producing a monthly LTC planning Web publication aimed at financial professionals.