So my read is their long term insurer Genworth got involved in a lawsuit. Genworth lost and sent out this unbelievably fuck you to people like my parents. Basically yeah if you want your part of the settlement you have to give up your inflation adjustment that we promised. And if you don’t give that up we are going to increase your premiums as much as the law will allow us.
Fucking ghouls.
I think option 3 looks like the best but I don’t know, absolute fucking ghouls sending this out to elderly people relying on them
As a law librarian my wife has gotten several of these but I think the largest was maybe low 3 digits. Often it’s $3.12 or similar or sometimes essentially a coupon.
I have definitely now read more about this than anything regarding my own insurance.
It sounds like the original contracts did allow them to raise premiums - they won lawsuits over that issue. But when they did raise premiums they weren’t transparent about the likelihood (which was virtually guaranteed) of future premium increases, so people kept their policies when they might have not done so if they knew the rates were going to continue to get jacked up. When they sold the original policies they didn’t know the actuarial model was fucked, but when they started to raise premiums they did know and didn’t share that info. A little like the tobacco companies - their liability began when they stopped acting in good faith, even though the product was always toxic.
Not sure what option is best in the screenshots. How old are your parents, what’s their savings like, etc? There might be scenarios where cutting losses and dropping the policies is the best move, although that will feel terrible. I know some people will put their assets into trusts so that on paper they’re penniless when the time comes for this stuff.
If Genworth goes belly-up I’m fucked with regard to my life insurance, although my kids are old enough at this point that everybody will be OK if I croak without a policy.
So dad is at the point where it hard to see him living past three years (Fuck Parkinson’s). So him being on the same three year plan that keeps the daily benefit, cuts the monthly premium seems like the best even if it removes the inflation adjustment. Do think it is time for Mom to search around. She is still in relatively good health
My uncle bought insurance that paid for I believe 3 years at about the nicest memory care facility you could be at. They had one worker for every two patients, a little farm, lots of activities.
In retrospect it was the best purchase he ever made, at least for the rest of the family. The only concern was if he lived longer than 3 years. But he only lasted a year and a half after my aunt couldn’t take care of him at home anymore.
My other uncle wound up at the Medicare version of the same place for a little while and it was horrible. Serious One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest vibes.
We’re going through this with my fiancé’s grandmother. She’s struggling with dementia and is now in her fourth facility, I think. The last one allowed her roommate to get violent and staff stole their personal belongings, including her engagement ring from her 60something year marriage. Fucking horrible and there was nothing we could do about it. These places just view them as money makers and don’t care about quality of life at all.
We just placed my 96 year old surrogate grandmother suffering from dementia in a home. We hired an independent person to find us a place, and we ended up putting her in a residential home that has 1 other patient. One of the nurses and her family lives in the home and she settled in really, really well and is well taken care of. The young children in the house love her.
Had no idea of such a place. My wife used to take our dogs to a large house memory care place (8? Residents) but it was all professional staff.
Our Petey (Petunia) would get super excited to go. It was an hour plus straight of constant pets. It was once a month but somehow she knew what day it was.
This thread topic certainly applies to my life right now.
My mom (72) was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer 1 year ago. She went through chemo/radiation without success, but has found hope in a drug called Avastin. It’s stopped the tumors from growing, but there’s no promise how long it will be effective for. She has to get an MRI every 6 weeks to check for new growth. It’s been about 8 months of no growth, which seems like a miracle to me. If this Avastin was not effective, that was ballgame for her. Unfortunately with aggressive brain tumors, the current strategy is just a bandaid. We could get the news tomorrow, in 2 months, or in 3 years that the tumors have started growing again.
And my dad (75) goes in for pacemaker surgery in mid July. He’s had atrial fibrillation and flutters for years, and gone through several cardio conversions and ablations where his heart gets shocked or zapped back into rhythm. With only temporary success. He also needs two knee replacements, and has diabetes.
They are in Maine, and I am on the West coast. Managing their care with my brother in Maine has been challenging, and not something I expected to deal with when I moved away from New England 18 months ago. But I guess that’s life.
I am going back in July to help them out for a week after my dad’s surgery. The transition from parents-supporting-child to child-supporting-parents has been a fast one for my brother and I. Cathartic to write this out, it’s a lot to deal with emotionally and logistically.
No, which is a large part of the frustration we have with him. The exercise is okay - he manages to walk the dog each day and does some puttering around the house and the property.
The diet though, woof. He consumes unbelievable amounts of carbs, dairy, and sugar to a lesser degree. At first, he was quite regimented with the diet when he got marching orders from the doctor. But all of that seems to have fallen by the wayside, and he’s back to lasagnas, pot pies, and drinking milk like water.
I’ve tried to bring the diet up from a position of, “you shouldn’t be eating these things” but got nowhere. Was thinking of trying something like, “it hurts me to see you eat this way, you’re not taking care of yourself. Don’t you want to be around to help mom?” Really crash through that Boomer emotional shell.
