Passing on Money - Your Assets

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Your Assets

On average, a person moving into a home spends about three years in it, although of course this length of time varies considerably from person to person. This means that, on average, you could get through nearly £52,000 in nursing home fees (even ignoring any fee increases). In your own particular case, the figure could range from nothing (if you did not need to move to a home at all) to a sum far in excess of the average £52,000.

So how can you plan sensibly for this phase of later life?

Long term care insurance

One tool available is long-term care insurance. In return for a series of regular premiums or a lump sum, the insurance company pays out if you become too disabled to cope alone.

Given this fact and the present rules about state provision of long-term care, it is highly debatable whether long-term care insurance currently has a part to play in the majority of people's financial plans.

However, the position might change at some stage in the future. Successive governments have been concerned at the high cost to the state of caring for elderly people, a cost that is projected to increase as the population over retirement age climbs from the present level of around 10.5 million to a projected 16.5 million by 2040. The previous Conservative government put forward some ideas for encouraging people to plan ahead to pay for their own care later in life, which set the debate going.