Your Wealthy Clients Think They Can Self-Fund Long-Term Care. Here’s Why That’s a Harder Sell Than It Sounds
The real conversation isn’t about whether wealthy clients can pay for care. It’s about what they’re giving up when they do.
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A three-year LTC event can easily exceed $1 million in today’s dollars — and $2–4 million for a couple fifteen to twenty years from now. That’s a lot of money, even for the wealthy. |
Wealthy Clients Actually Spend More on Long-Term Care
High net worth individuals tend to have higher care costs — not lower. Their adult children are less likely to provide hands-on care (surgeons, attorneys, and executives rarely step away from work for years at a time). They’re more likely to want to stay home, where 24/7 professional care now exceeds $260,000 annually — and can top $350,000 in wealthier communities. And when they do consider a facility, it’s often a luxury option running $35,000 or more per month.
Self-funding that math means pulling dollars out of portfolios, liquidating assets, and potentially selling real estate at the wrong time — all while exposing the estate to unnecessary risk.
Finding the Financial Pain Point
Shawn Britt’s approach is to find what she calls the “financial pain point” — the place where spending on care creates a real cost to something the client actually cares about. For HNW clients, that could be:
• Charitable giving and philanthropy that gets crossed off the list dollar-for-dollar when care costs rise
• Illiquid assets (real estate, business interests) that create a “fire sale” risk if care is needed unexpectedly
• Inheritance and generational wealth that erodes when care is self-funded out of the estate
• Estate tax exposure — keeping $1M in the estate to self-fund LTC means those funds are subject to up to 40% estate taxation if care is never needed
• Family conflict — LTC insurance removes the burden of adult children making difficult financial decisions about a parent’s care
The Portfolio Angle That Changes the Conversation
One of the most effective reframes for HNW clients is shifting from “insuring the person” to “insuring the portfolio.” Money pulled out to pay for care can’t recover in a down market or compound in a good one. LTC coverage keeps those assets in place, working, while insurance pays for care.
For advisors who earn the CLTC® designation, these are exactly the kinds of conversations the designation prepares you to have with confidence.