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Long-term care insurance provides coverage for care administered outside a hospital setting. Good policies provide payment for custodial care services, such as preparing meals, doing laundry, and shopping. While Medicaid requires that custodial care be provided in a nursing home, long-term care insurance generally covers custodial care in the insured’s home, an assisted living facility, [...]
Continue reading...Parents often face many challenges when preparing an estate plan, as they must consider how best to provide for their children after they are gone. Parents of a child with special needs, though, are faced with several unique challenges. They will want to develop a plan that safeguards the quality of the child’s life, supplementing [...]
Continue reading...If you have a child with special needs, you should talk to extended family members who may be intending to make a gift or bequest. Extended family members may have your child’s best interests at heart, but they may be unaware that the money they leave to your child could jeopardize eligibility for government benefits. [...]
Continue reading...While it’s important for the parents of a child with special needs to provide for the child’s financial well-being in their estate plan, it’s equally important to address the issue of transitioning to life with a new caregiver. That’s the purpose of a letter of intent, which is intended to assist future caregivers by describing [...]
Continue reading...When considering how much money you will need to fund a special needs trust, you may wish to consider items that will offer your child a better quality of life. Government benefits are designed to provide basic food and shelter, but they will not offer your child any of the extras he is used to. [...]
Continue reading...A child with special needs deserves a parent’s continued stewardship and guidance, even if the parent becomes incapacitated or passes away, and the following estate planning documents are key to ensuring the child’s security.
(1) A last will and testament.
(2) A general durable power of attorney (“GDPA”). This document designates an agent to act on an individual’s [...]
When a couple is divorcing, it is important that they do not forget their commitments to their child with special needs. Most importantly, any child support for the child with special needs should be allocated under the separation agreement to a Special Needs Trust. This will ensure that these assets will not affect the [...]
Continue reading...Establishing legal guardianship for a person with special needs can be a costly procedure, and these financial expenses can put a significant strain on many families. Caring for their loved ones is already an emotionally taxing process, and families do not need to feel financial pressure on top of this.
In order to help families deal [...]
All parents want to minimize the opportunity for conflict among their children once they have passed away. Sometimes, however, conflict arises when parents have gifted money to one of their children and not to the others. Such conflict may be avoided by including provisions in your estate plan for gifts and [...]
Continue reading...A pooled trust helps families and caregivers establish trust accounts that provide supplemental funds for their loved ones with disabilities without jeopardizing their eligibility for Social Security Income and Medicaid. An individual or his parents/guardians establish a sub-account with the pooled trust program. The program then pools all of the funds [...]
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