What is Long-Term Care Insurance and Who Needs It with Kelly Augspurger

Join Kosta and his guest: Kelly Augspurger, Certified Long-Term Care Insurance Specialist (CLTC®), Certified Senior Advisor (CSA®), Co-Founder of Steadfast Insurance, and 2022’s Top 10 Women of Distinction in Insurance.

Today we’re talking about long-term care insurance, who needs it, and why it matters.

In this episode: what differentiates long-term care insurance from Medicare, Medicaid, and other medical insurance(s), retirement, or life insurance, what the average policy looks like as far as cost/scope of service, and how it actually works when the time comes?

Find out more about Kelly Augspurger and Steadfast Insurance:
https://www.steadfastagents.com/

Watch this episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnmYGGmBAIU

Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Kelly Augspurger: 0:04

It does really mitigate and reduce those consequences financially, physically, mentally, emotionally. That's the goal of creating a plan. And then also having insurance is you're transferring that risk, you're transferring really those consequences to the insurance company. Because you're getting all this leverage, you're getting all of these benefits. You're able to hire professional caregivers so that your family doesn't have to be burdened and being be the caregiver, they can remain the spouse, they can remain the daughter this then whatever role they're in, right? Rather than being that actual physical caregiver, they can supervise, coordinate that care, you don't get physically hands on or standby provide that care and that that saves the world a burden, you know, really reducing those consequences. So that's why we want to play now.

Caroline Moore: 0:58

Welcome to Now or Never Long-Term Care Strategy with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast for all those seeking answers and solutions in the long-term care space. This podcast is designed to create resources, start conversations and bring awareness to the industry that will inevitably impact all Americans. Here’s your host, Kosta Yepifantsev:

Kosta Yepifantsev: 1:21

Hey, y'all, this is Costa. And today, I'm here with my guest, Kelly Augsburger, certified Long Term Care Insurance Specialist, co founder and owner of steadfast Insurance Group, and 2020 two's top 10 Women of Distinction in insurance. Today, we're talking about long term care insurance, who needs it, and why it matters. So, Kelly, let's start from the top what is long term care insurance?

Kelly Augspurger: 1:48

Hey, Kosta, thanks so much for having me. Pleasure to be here. What is long term care insurance, love educating on this topic, because most people don't really know what it is and what it does think of long term care insurance like a bucket of money, you can use it to pay for care. Now, long term care insurance is not medical insurance. And I know we're gonna get into this in a little bit, a little bit. But think of it as protection for custodial, non medical care if you need help with two out of six activities of daily living, or if you have a cognitive impairment and need supervision, your policy can pay benefits to help pay for care. So it is a bucket of money to use to pay for care. What I really like to emphasize is a long term care insurance policy helps to fund your long term care plan. It's not the entire plan, but it's the How am I going to pay for part of my care or most or all of my care?

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:49

And so when you say long term care plan, is that something that most people need to have when they're planning for retirement?

Kelly Augspurger: 2:57

Yes, everyone should have a plan for extended care. And what that means is, how are you going to pay for it? Where do you want to receive care? And who's going to provide care? Those are three big questions that everyone needs to discuss with their spouse, their kids, their family, whoever's in their life, it's important to them on what that's going to look like. And then you figure out, okay, how am I going to pay for that? Well, that's when the insurance comes into play.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 3:24

And so we've talked about insurance, and people are thinking, you know, well, car insurance, right, you know, home insurance. And when we say long term care insurance, everybody's like, well, what's that, but I'd like to create some differentiations, based off of your description, because you did a great job explaining the insurance, what differentiates Long Term Care Insurance from things like Medicare, Medicaid, other medical insurances? Retired retirement or life insurance? Great question. So going back to really what is the definition and what does Long Term Care Insurance do it's providing coverage when you need help with activities of daily living, or if you have a cognitive impairment, so most often, this is non medical in nature. And when we're looking at Medicare, that is intended for acute medical conditions, so people typically above the age of 65, they are on Medicare, right receiving those health benefits for acute short term situations. It's not extended, it's not typically beyond 100 days, whereas Long Term Care Insurance is covering for extended periods, a year, two years, three years, four years, even potentially lifetime. So this is non medical in nature and then and then with Medicaid. Typically, when people are on Medicaid, they're spending on their assets. They're spending down their income so that they can receive care either skilled care or custodial non medical care. As far as life insurance goes, life insurance is providing a debt death benefit if you pass away, there are some many insurance policies that will actually allow you to accelerate to use that death benefit, even prior to passing away, if you have a terminal illness, okay, and typically the first 12 months, yeah, 12 months, you're expected to pass away. But when we're talking about an extended care, that's typically beyond a year. So I mean, that is something that people can consider, as does my life insurance policy pay benefits. If I have a terminal illness, can I access that up front, but typically all those things and Medicare and Medicaid, the medical insurances, those are for acute medical conditions, whereas Long Term Care Insurance, extended care, non medical nature, although it will pay for even skilled care, if you need physical therapy, if you need speech therapy, occupational therapy, those types of things, it can also provide coverage for that. It's not going to duplicate benefits, if let's say mid Medicare already covers those things. But there can be coverage for that as well. You know, we're talking about kind of the the nuances around accessing this market. And I want to ask who you think needs long term care insurance. But more importantly, I'd like to know what age range you think people should start getting a quote for a policy? Yeah, I

Kelly Augspurger: 6:24

love this question. So who needs to consider Long Term Care Insurance, these are going to be people who are concerned about burning burdening their family. And they're concerned about the loss of future care, I will tell you that I have a lot of even high income clients that choose to buy long term care insurance because they see the value of the leverage. And the extra services that long term care insurance also brings like care coordination, respite care, caregiver training, home modifications, bed reservation, those types of things. So that's who should consider it. And I would like to say, who shouldn't consider long term care insurance, because I think that's equally important. Brian, there's not, there's not a hard fast rule. Basically, if you don't have good predictable income in some assets, like a home or a nest egg to protect, then Long Term Care Insurance probably isn't the best option for you. The really, the last thing I want is for a client or clients to be in a situation where an insurance premium means that they're not going to be able to pay an unexpected expense in the future, you know, things pop up. And if they can't afford to keep paying their premiums, then it's not going to be a good fit, we don't want it to radically affect someone's lifestyle where they can't afford it. Okay, it needs to be the right fit. Also important to note that you have to be healthy enough to qualify, so you might really want long term care insurance. But if you're not healthy enough to qualify, you won't be able to get the coverage, which leads me to, when should you buy it, the healthier and younger you are, the more options you will have and the less expensive it will be. So I have clients that are in their early 40s. And then I have clients into their 70s. So there's a big range there. But most people are considering coverage in their 50s. And you know why in their 50s Typically, at that point, people have kids that are probably out of high school, or maybe they're in college, they're they're kind of starting to get off payroll a little bit, if you will. And so they have some some money freed up. And they have been, maybe they might even be in a situation with loved ones right now where they are providing care for a parent, or an in law called Reality of providing care. And so they want to put a plan in place now before that before they get any older.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:49

And you know, and I was thinking about this the other day, you know, you spend most of your young adult life like your 20s 30s Maybe your 40s caring for children, right raising kids. And when you kind of, you know, check that box off, finally, and your kids go to college, or you know, they leave the house, they become self sufficient and independent. You're like, you know, yeah, you know, I'm so glad that I have a little bit more time now. And I'm so like, I feel so accomplished. And then a lot of times you have to start taking you have to start thinking about taking care of your parents, you know, and if you didn't plan for that, and I think a lot of people don't realize just how prevalent how many times this happens to to average everyday Americans that have little to no resources to be able to respond to it. It allows you to not just create your own safety net the benefits that you're describing, like the minor home modifications, were like you can build wheelchair ramps or you can turn a bathtub into a shower, you know, to prevent falls. Like all those benefits. Yeah. They are available on the Medicaid side of things. But you have to qualify for Medicaid, which means that all the wealth that you're trying to build all that generational wealth that you're trying to pass on to your loved ones, all the hard work that you put in over the years would be gone. Because you're gonna have to spend all that money, or you're gonna have to give that money over to the state, including the net worth of your home. And so, if you plan for long term care insurance, like you're describing, not only are you creating a safety net for yourself, in terms of having control of your care, having a say about how you receive care where you receive care, but secondary to that you get to protect your assets, so that you can have something to pass along to your loved ones.

Kelly Augspurger: 10:51

That's exactly right. Very well said. And I would just add, it does really mitigate and reduce those consequences financially, physically, mentally, emotionally, that's the goal of creating a plan. And then also having insurance is you're transferring that risk, you're transferring, really those consequences to the insurance company, because you're getting all this leverage, you're getting all of these benefits, you're able to hire professional caregivers, so that your family doesn't have to be burdened and being be the caregiver, they can remain the spouse, they can remain the doctor this time, whatever. Right? Rather than being that actual physical caregiver, they can supervise coordinate that care, but they don't do physically hands on or standby, provide that care, and that, that saves a world of burden, you know, really reducing those consequences. So that's why we want to play now.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:47

So, in your opinion, what's the best case scenario in terms of getting a long term care insurance policy, accessing the long term care insurance marketplace when necessary? And in your opinion, what do you think is the worst case scenario if no body planned at all, and you know, they have a stroke, boom, you know, and now they're down the long term care rabbit hole. And I know you spoke a little bit on it. But I'd like for you to really kind of create those two, two images, these two images of polar opposites.

Kelly Augspurger: 12:22

Right. And these are very different situations. So to start knowing that, if you have insurance, it really is the most efficient way to pay for care because of all the leverage and the extra benefits. But most people's default plan is self funding, they are paying for their care costs out of their income out of their assets, having to even transfer out to income in order to pay for that care. But along with that come consequences, like we discussed. Best case for someone who has an insurance policy could be that you never needed to use it. Because you died peacefully in your sleep, and you didn't need extended care. Or you could have the perspective of its best case, if you need care. And your policy pays out all of its benefits. So again, depends on your perspective, worst case for someone who they have to spend down their assets and meet Medicaid eligibility of assets and income and then go on Medicaid where they're not staying control their care options. They're not necessarily choosing where they want to receive care and how they're receiving care. So I'd say those are the best and worst case,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:24

I know that there is at least one person listening that thinks that long term care insurance is a complete and total scam. What do you say to those skeptics?

Kelly Augspurger: 13:39

Yeah, that's pretty easy talk to families who have used a policy and they'll tell you that it's not a scam, and that they've benefited from it physically, financially, mentally and emotionally. You know, I hear people say this, occasionally. And that's, that's what I tell them. If you talk to family members that have received benefits, even for six months, you know, all of those premiums that were paid into that policy over however many years, they are so thankful for that because it is protecting their family, it's protecting their income, and it's protecting their assets. As far as you think of like your home and auto insurance. People don't say, Well, maybe some people do. But typically people don't say home and auto insurance is a scam. The idea is when you you have coverage and there's the claim the insurance company is there for you. And it's the same with long term care insurance as long as you meet the contract language. If you tricked you trigger your policy by two out of six activities of daily living, transferring toileting, bathing, dressing, eating or continence, or if you have a cognitive impairment that meets the contract language and they have to follow you have to stick to the contract. So as long as you meet those triggers and you meet that contract language, they will pay out. So of course there are a lot ration periods have waiting periods. But and we'll talk about that I think here in a little bit, but no, it's it. That's why we buy insurance, we buy it for the guarantee, that's what it is, you just have to meet that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:11

And I, I do want to get into kind of the meat and potatoes of long term care insurance, because I think that the reason why people are skeptical because I do hear this, you know, like, no one was expecting a waiting period. And also, most people don't think about long term care insurance until they actually need it, which is obviously too late. And so it's so expensive, that they can afford it. And so there's all these. And then the last thing that I want to bring up was, I think at one point, there was a lot of carriers that were offering long term care policies. And since the mid 2000s, there's a lot less and so the market is a lot more specialized and concentrated. I think in a lot of ways what people don't understand about long term care is once you turn 75, you have an 80% chance of needing long term care before the end of your life. And so it's it's not like car insurance, where you only use it if something if something bad happens, like a car accident, or, you know, home insurance, if you know your home catches on fire tornado or something like that. No, this insurance is in inevitability like this, this long term care is an inevitability essentially. So the fact that people do not take out a policy. I just I mean, I don't understand that. I don't understand why anybody wouldn't, you know,

Kelly Augspurger: 16:41

I think it comes down to education caster. Yeah, right, I think because there have been so many shifts in the marketplace over the last 15 or so years, 20 years, that people have misconceptions of what it is, what it does, how it works, how it pays out. And so they're confused. And I think it's the job of financial advisors, our industry, the government agents, lots of people in order to come together and say, Listen, number one, you need to have a plan for extended care. Okay, that may or may not include insurance, hopefully it does, because of all the benefits, right? We need to have a plan. So let's, let's start there. And, and then just that's not a priority for so many. And so it's really my mission to really lead that pack and say, Okay, how can we help Americans plan for the future and plan for extended care? Let's answer these basic questions. Let's consider insurance. It's a viable solution. If you don't wait until you're retired, I mean, yes, there are people that are on retirement, and I have clients in their 70s. But it's more expensive, and you have fewer options. So you need to consider it when you're younger and healthier. Right,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 17:56

going back to when do they so like, talk a little bit about that before we before we start, you know, unpacking long term care, like what's the difference between the in terms of the premium amount between someone that gets it say at like 40, and doesn't have any long term chronic illness versus somebody that waited and is in crisis, they may not even they may not be eligible for coverage, but let's just say that they are how much more expensive is that if they waited,

Kelly Augspurger: 18:26

right? So every year it goes up, just like life insurance, just like disability income insurance every year, it's gonna go up. But just to give you an idea of and I just I just pulled a quote on a couple that I helped married couple age 50. And that's, you know, that's typically when I'm helping clients in their 50s. So an average couple health, not the best health, not the worst health just very average looking at a traditional policy. And when I say traditional, I mean it's just pure insurance, there's no added benefit, there's no death benefit or cash value. If you don't use the coverage, it's just simply insurance. If a couple got coverage today, and they wanted a $4,000 monthly benefit starting today, and they wanted four years of coverage, I can give you an idea of how much that would cost. So they would have a 90 day elimination period, that's their waiting period, we added a 3% compound inflation protection writer on there, which means nice every year that policy is gonna grow by 3% compound the monthly benefit and that total pool of money is gonna grow. I also added shared care which means you can actually dip into the other spouse's pool of money if you use all of all of your so yes, you have a minimum of four years but guess what, I can dip into my spouse's and get like another three years of coverage. Okay. If if someone were to look at a policy like that monthly premiums on that would be about$470. Okay, or yearly about 52. It's not bad, robust coverage that the total bill If it's their starting year one is over$380,000. So you're spending about 5200 a year, first year, though, you've got over $380,000 worth of protection, but in 25 years, so by the time you're 75, you're going to have over$780,000 worth of coverage. So that just goes to show you the the leverage, that's possible. Now, if you're in better health, those rates are going to be less, if you're in worse health, those rates are going to be more. So again, health is really important. Something that I do with my clients is one of the first things we do as we're talking through options, is do a health pre screen asking detailed questions on health history, you know, prescriptions, those types of things, to get an idea of, you know, where they stand, what carriers which are the best fit, is this the right time to even even apply? If you've had like a recent medication change, you don't want to apply? Usually, there's a waiting period, the companies want to see that you're stable. So right, you know, health is important. And then the time of application is important.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:09

Yeah, let me, let me kind of connect some dots. For our listeners and our viewers. If you don't have long term care insurance, the net worth that you've accumulated over the years, is going to be equivalent, in a lot of times to that $700,000 that you've accumulated in policy. And so whether you spend it via insurance, or you spend it by giving up your assets, the cost of care is still going to be spent. That's right. And so this is so important. I'm, you know, and the reason why I bring that up is because there's a lot of things that people don't understand about long term care, let alone the insurance side of it. I need them, I need to be able to sort of bring it to terms where people are like, Oh, okay, well, I've spent 30 years paying off my house, I kind of want to keep it. So let me go buy this long term care insurance policy so that when I get older, if I do suffer from any type of chronic illness, I'll have somebody to care for me. And I know I've said it before, but I'm going to keep beating it. I just really need people to understand how important it is. So, you know, in your opinion, do you think that long term care insurance should be like car insurance, where it's literally it's mandated to carry car insurance? If you operate a vehicle? Is that something that you think would would help improve our current situation?

Kelly Augspurger: 22:48

That's a really interesting question, because the government is now stepping in and starting to consider Long Term Care payroll taxes, which have actually already started out in Washington State. So I don't know how many viewers are familiar with that. But it is it is, really, it's a new, new idea. They're the first of any state to consider this and to actually put a plan in place. But what Washington State did was they said, We're going to charge a point five 8%, payroll tax for all w two employees, no cap on income, no cap. And we will, we will, we will deduct that from your earnings in order to fund a separate pool of money to help pay for care in the future. Now, what do these w two employees receive out of paying that point? Five 8% payroll tax? Not a lot. Right now. It's 36,730 $6,500 total pool of benefits that that a person could actually receive from paying this payroll tax lifetime? Yes, yes. No, they are. They are. They are talking about adding some kind of inflation on there. And they're still working out details. And actually, they're still making revisions and haven't started actually collecting on that. Because, again, first of its kind, they're learning as they go really. So Right. So you know, man, mandating people getting a policy will? Well, that's basically what Washington state is doing. They're saying, if you don't have your own Long Term Care, qualified long term care insurance policy, you have to pay this payroll tax. Okay. Unless you're self employed, then there's certain opt outs for that. But most everybody has to actually pay this payroll tax. I was helping clients out in Washington State, get a policy before the opt out period, so they don't have to pay the payroll tax and we have more meaningful coverage than a meager $36,500. So yeah, it'll be interesting. I mean, are considering that to Costa other states, there's about a dozen other states that are looking to do something similar to Washington State So, I foresee, I foresee many other states doing this, which the end of the day, I think it's a good and maybe not so good thing. I think it might give people false sense of hope of, Oh, I've got coverage for long term care. I'm all set. Well, how much coverage Do you have? Is it meaningful coverage? I do think that it's definitely raised awareness, which is great for our industry, we want people to be talking about planning for extended care. And finally, you know, we do we have the government stepping up to talk about this. So I think that part is that part is good.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 25:37

Yeah. And, you know, one of the reasons just to fill in some blanks, one of the reasons I feel like this is happening, is first off, Baby Boomer generation is getting older, they're the second largest population subset in our country. Most people think that Medicare is going to pay for long term care, it doesn't. And so, you know, I feel like, they're, I don't want to say panicking. But I feel like they are like, this is a serious problem. We have to start coming up with some type of solutions. But you and I both know, when you talk about $36,500. That's, I mean, what, three months at a nursing home, That's chump change. I mean, yeah, exactly. It's like three to four months at a nursing home. If you want to receive care in your own home, that's maybe five or six months tops, average Long Term Care last, what, two to three years. So, yeah, I mean, it's it. But like you said, it's valiant because the conversations being started in, in a government process. So I mean, it's good that Washington took that step. So that's right.

Kelly Augspurger: 26:50

And I would like to add, I don't know if we discussed this earlier. But having a policy, yes, it helps you stay in control of your care options, because you have those funds, but you can choose to have care received care wherever you want, at home, in an assisted living facility. If you need to go to a nursing facility, adult day care, there are just so many options on where you can use your benefits. It's not a location, it's just did you trigger your policy based on such

Kosta Yepifantsev: 27:18

a good, such a good point? Such a good point. So let's talk about the meat potatoes. What will the average policy look like as far as cost and scope of service? And how does it actually work? When the time comes? And when I what I mean by that is? Are there deductibles co pays hidden fees? Can it be cancelled? Right? Is there a limit to how much you can use? And does it run out?

Kelly Augspurger: 27:50

Right? So we looked at a quote already have a married couple age 50. Right, right, $1,000 a month for four years, that's a pretty average policy. Sometimes, I'll have clients that might even do a basic like three years, $3,000 3% inflation, or 333. Pretty, pretty basic, very standard. I have clients, though, that will do they want a robust benefit, they want $8,000 A month and they can afford it. And they want lifetime benefit. They can afford it. Yeah, be the repositioning an asset, maybe using even a PERT, you can use permanent life insurance. So if you've got permanent life insurance that you don't need anymore, and you've cash value, sometimes clients will actually take that and use that to fund a policy. So lots of different ways that we can structure a policy and ways that we can fund it. But you know, the gamut is really $2,000 A month all the way up to like $15,000 a month as you can create a policy really within those limits from two years all the way up to lifetime benefit. So it comes down to what is a meaningful way to create a policy, what's the most meaningful and affordable way to create a policy because we want it to fit in your budget. And we want it to provide meaningful protection. So that's going to be different for every person, every family. But the quote that I shared earlier with a couple that's a pretty standard standard policy. And then as far as deductibles, co pays or anything like that every policy will have what's called an elimination period. This is your waiting period, the amount of time that you have to wait your self funding your care costs until your benefits begin. Now a typical elimination periods 90 days, that's pretty standard. We do have some companies that will allow you to adjust that you could do like a zero day waiting period. You could do 180 day waiting period, sometimes you can pick and choose depending on the carrier. Some carriers will just say it's 90 days. That's just what we offer. There are calendar day elimination periods and there are service day elimination periods in this there's a big difference. And hopefully agents and advisors that are selling policies will come claim the differences, the differences to their clients, and I do. But basically, calendar day elimination period is looking at every single once you turn in your policy, every single day that passes, that counts towards your elimination period. Okay, every calendar day versus a service day elimination period is going to look at every single day that you receive service counts towards your elimination period. So if you're only receiving care service three days a week, not seven, that's going to take longer to fulfill your elimination period. So there is a distinct difference. And you want to know that when you're looking at policies and choosing policies, is this a service day? Or is this the calendar day elimination period? Okay, typically, service days is usually the most common, although we do have calendar day elimination periods as well. So you have to meet that elimination period can be canceled, the only time a policy can be cancelled is if you stopped making premium payments. So like your home insurance, like your auto insurance, if you just stopped making premium payments, well, you don't have coverage anymore. So if you have annual payments or monthly payments, you know, you just you want to make sure that those are regular, they're scheduled, see if you can do EFT. If you do a lump sum while you're done, you make that one payment and you're done. If you have a 10 Pay or 20 Pay where you're doing 10 equal payments, 20 equal payments, you know you're doing those over time. So you just want to make sure that you keep up with paying those premiums. Companies will actually ask you, if you miss a premium payment, do you want someone to be notified? I encouraged my clients all the time. Yes, you should definitely put someone in there. Maybe it's a sibling. Maybe it's an extended family member. But things happen, right? People switch banks, or maybe you just forgot, especially with old age, as we get older, become more forgetful. Maybe you should be claiming you're not unclaimed yet, but you forgot to make your premium payment, you want to make sure that someone is notified if you miss a premium payment. So I think that's really important. And then is there a limit to how much you can use? Does it run out? Yes. So there typically is a limit unless you have lifetime benefit. So if you have a if you have a policy that says okay, you have a four year benefit period, or a three year, five year, whatever it is, that's actually typically the minimum amount. So if you're using your full monthly benefit, let's, let's say you have a $4,000 monthly benefit for four years, if you use the full $4,000 Every month, it will last exactly four years. If you use half that maybe you're only using 2000 a month, which is probably unlikely. If you're only using 2000, then your benefit period will last twice as long. It'll last eight years. So that's how, yeah, so that's how it works. Now, if you have lifetime benefits, it'll last however many years if you have a $4,000 monthly benefit, you will receive that benefit your entire lifetime when you're on claim as long as you're

Kosta Yepifantsev: 33:02

on claim. So no one is going to unless you don't pay your premium, nobody is just going to say, Oh, you're too sick, or you know, okay,

Kelly Augspurger: 33:13

good. No, no. The idea is when you buy a policy, you're locking in your insurability that after the fact they can't come back to you and say, Oh, well, we looked in your medical records, and you are now a diabetic. So we are canceling your coverage. No. That's why we advise clients to get coverage in place when you're healthy, healthier, and younger. Because you're you're making sure that you you have insurability and you're lacking that insurability. And yeah,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 33:41

so we always like to end the show with a call to action. What's your best advice for someone entering the long term care industry as a patient, a caregiver, or an industry professional?

Kelly Augspurger: 33:59

I love this question. So I would advise if you're an industry professional, really, I think there are three three main things that I would advise number one, be a servant leader. How can you help people not? What can they do for you? What are you going to get out of it? But how can you best serve people in your industry? How can you best serve your clients? What does that look like? Be a giver and not a taker? Next, I would say education is so important. You want to be an expert in your field. Get as much education as you can, so that you can best serve your clients and best serve your industry. So if that means you're taking extra classes, you're reading lots of articles, whatever it is, depending on your specific role in your industry. Educate yourself so you can properly educate others, other clients and others in your industry. And then thirdly, I would say have a great network have a great network of other industry professionals. I like you and I cost us so, you know, we're both in really the the long term care extended care industry, but we do different things. So for me, you know, I have a wonderful network of homecare agencies, facility locators, financial advisors, estate planners, Home Modification companies, you know, lots of people that are all serving similar clients that I serve, so that when clients come to me, and they say, Hey, Kelly, you know, mom, mom needs some care. Do you know anybody? And I can say, absolutely I do. Here are a couple referrals for you. So we're adding value to our clients beyond what we just do.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 35:44

And so, what would you say to someone like that's a patient that you are that is already that was already in the long term care marketplace? I know, obviously, you come into contact with a lot of people that are accessing this benefit. Any words of encouragement or anything like that?

Kelly Augspurger: 36:05

Yeah. So I think for for a caregiver, and then even a patient because oftentimes the caregiver is the patient's advocate, is ask a lot of questions, do research, you know, if someone tells you one thing, don't necessarily take that as the gospel, because there might be other avenues of of different ways to do it. But really doing research and figuring out okay, what is the best path here? What does that look like? So, being educated if you don't have the resources, or resources to do that, find someone that can help you.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 36:40

Right? Absolutely. Kelly, this has been a fantastic conversation. And I really appreciate you being on with us and talking about long term care insurance and some of the great and sometimes very bad things that occur within our marketplace if people do not prepare properly. So I wish you best of luck. And thank you again,

Kelly Augspurger: 37:06

thank you for having me.

Caroline Moore: 37:08

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Now or Never Long Term Care Strategy with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you enjoyed listening and you wanna hear more make sure you subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you find your Podcasts, leave us a review or better yet share this episode with a friend. Now or Never Long-Term Care Strategy is a Kosta Yepifantsev production. Today’s episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin. Want to find out more about Kosta? Visit us at kostayepifantsev.com