Month: April 2017

Sometimes mistakes in an estate plan can be repaired after death. Sometimes not.

Charles Sukenik executed his will on November 4, 2004. His estate was to be divided between his surviving spouse, Vivian, and the couple’s private foundation.  His revocable trust was restated at the same time, giving Vivian certain real property and the balance to the foundation.

Roughly five years later, in 2009, Charles designated Vivian as the beneficiary of his IRA, worth some $3.2 million. 

When Charles died in 2013, the heirs discovered that the estate plan was not very tax efficient. Vivian was looking at potential income taxes of $1.6 million on the IRA distributions.  She proposed to reform the estate plan, giving the IRA to the private foundation in exchange for other estate assets of equal value.  The charity was not opposed to the plan.  Being tax exempt, the new plan would make the income tax obligation that comes with an inherited IRA disappear.  Certainly, this approach would more effectively implement Charles’ testamentary intentions.

The Court couldn’t swallow this one, because “the reformation requested here is prompted by neither a drafting error nor a subsequent change in law. Several years after executing his will and trust, decedent himself thwarted the tax efficiency of his own estate plan by making [Vivian] the beneficiary of the IRA. There is nothing in the record indicating why, after executing these estate planning instruments, [Charles] chose to leave additional assets to his wife in this manner or why, in the four years before his death, he did not take steps to cure the unfavorable tax consequences of his choice of IRA beneficiary.”

The Court concluded that if reformation were allowed in these circumstances, the decision “would expand the reformation doctrine beyond recognition and would open the floodgates to reformation proceedings aimed at curing any and all kinds of inefficient tax planning.”

Did Charles have any understanding of the tax time bomb that he included in his estate plan?  It appears probable that he did not consult his attorney before designating his wife as his IRA beneficiary, which is an ordinary, everyday occurrence.  But he should have.

© 2017 M.A. Co.  All rights reserved.

More than 400,000 long-term-care insurance policies were sold in 1992, according to figures published by The Wall Street Journal.  These are the policies that help seniors cover the costs of nursing home stays at the end of life.  At least 400,000 additional policies were purchased each year in the subsequent ten years, peaking at about 750,000 in 2002.

Then sales collapsed, and never again reached the 400,000 level. Last year, reportedly only 105,000 such policies were sold.  What’s more, two Pennsylvania providers of long-term care insurance were on the verge of being liquidated in December.

The need for long-term-care insurance never has been greater.  What happened to the market?

Actuarial errors

A series of actuarial errors were made when long-term-care insurance was first introduced.  The most important of these was the “lapse rate,” the number of policies that will be terminated without ever paying a benefit. This occurs either because the insured stops paying premiums or the insured dies without making a claim.  The actuaries chose a fairly conservative lapse rate of 5%.  At that rate, if 1,000 policies were sold in year one, only 400 would be in force 20 years later.  As it turned out, the buyers of long-term-care insurance thought of their purchase primarily as an investment, not as insurance, and so the lapse experience was closer to 1%, which implies that 800 of every 1,000 policies still will be in force after 20 years.  That led to far higher payouts than projected.

When the unanticipated expenses started to pour in, insurance companies had to raise their rates.  However, in many cases, state insurance regulators would not approve the full amounts requested for existing policyholders.

Two more errors compounded the damage.  The first is that medical advances have lengthened life expectancies, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of making a claim on a long-term-care insurance policy. The second is that the actuaries generally assumed a 7% rate of return on the invested premiums on these policies.  That assumption was fine in the 1990s, but interest rates have been at historic lows since 2008.  When long-term-care policies are priced today, the projected rate of return on premiums is likely to be 2% to 3%, which drives premium costs still higher.

Getting coverage

If you already have a long-term-care policy, you probably want to hang on to it.  For the most part, those who have purchased these policies have profited from them.

New long-term-care policies still are available, although they are more expensive than in the past, and the terms may be less favorable than older policies.  Insurance companies are now using much more conservative actuarial assumptions.

Hybrid policies that combine life insurance with long-term-care coverage have emerged, and they have proved popular as well.

The poorest seniors may have the costs of their long-term care picked up by the government through Medicaid.  The wealthiest may be able to cover the costs without insurance—even though a year’s stay in a nursing home can easily run to $100,000 or more.

For everyone in the middle, planning is necessary. Despite the price increases, long-term-care insurance will prove an important part of that plan for many affluent families.

© 2017 M.A. Co.  All rights reserved.