Saving for retirement can sometimes feel like building the plane as you’re flying it: How do you know how much is “enough” to put away for retirement each month if you don’t know exactly what you plan to do during your retirement years? Will you travel? Will your grandkids be living down the street or across the country? Will you suddenly develop a taste for expensive wine?
And now for some more serious questions: Will your health last or will you develop health problems as you get older? And finally, the Big Question that no one has the answer to and very few people like to think about: How many years will you live for after retirement?
For a police officer, another thought lurks: What if I get injured on the job? If I’m unable to work, what happens to my retirement savings plan?
While some of the above questions can be answered, at least with some degree of certainty, a few of them simply cannot: Will I get injured on the job to the extent that I am no longer able to work and 2) how many years of retirement will I have before I die?
This is where long-term care (LTC) benefits come in, especially for people in occupations that carry a higher than average amount of risk. For police personnel and their families, the National Police and Firefighters Benefits Association (NPFBA), a non-profit organization that offers comprehensive LTC plans, can provide an affordable option to satisfy those lingering questions about the future that are difficult, if not impossible, to answer.
How LTC coverage works
Simplified, NPFBA’s Long Term Care coverage helps preserve your pension dollars, assets, and your family’s peace of mind. The need for long term care without owning coverage can literally bankrupt families. Considering that current data shows that 7 out of 10 people, age of 65 and older, will need long term care at some point in their life, it makes sense to look into LTC now, while you are still healthy and working.
So, those are the basic reasons why LTC makes sense financially. But here’s another compelling reason why a LTC coverage plan with NPFBA is important: peace of mind.
With an LTC plan already in place, your family doesn’t have to scramble to figure out how they will care for you; a professional care team from NPFBA will help plan a program of care and help execute it when it’s needed. In other words, your family will be part of the planning process, but they do not have to take the lead, which means you and your loved ones can spend more time just being together and less time worrying about what happens next.
