Turning Complex Assets Into Long-Term Care Solutions: June Webinar Recap

In today’s webinar, Ryan Quante of Care Income Advisors walked through how different planning strategies can be used to create long-term care solutions, especially for clients who may not fit the traditional mold.

Ryan focused on a theme that is coming up more often: how to take existing assets like IRAs, non-qualified annuities, or even steady income, and reposition them in a way that creates flexibility, protection, and meaningful leverage for long-term care.

A key takeaway from the webinar was a simple but important point about how care is funded. Health insurance does not cover long-term care, Medicare provides only limited short-term support, and Medicaid typically comes into play after planning or spend-down. In reality, clients end up relying on personal assets, government programs, or proactive planning strategies. Ryan’s focus is assisting with those proactive planning strategies to help create options.

When structured properly, some strategies allow clients to reposition assets so that one dollar can stretch much further for care, while still preserving value for beneficiaries if care is never needed. That “use it or pass it on” concept tends to resonate, especially with clients who are hesitant to commit funds toward long-term care.

Several real-world examples helped bring this to life. In one scenario, a couple used a portion of an IRA to create a lifetime long-term care benefit with tax-free monthly income, while still preserving a death benefit if care was never needed. In another, a client with strong monthly income but fewer liquid assets used a pay-as-you-go approach to build a long-term care pool over time, with the added flexibility of paying family members as caregivers.

Ryan also walked through strategies using existing non-qualified annuities under the Pension Protection Act. Instead of drawing down an annuity and paying tax along the way, the asset can be repositioned to create a significantly larger, tax-free pool for care. For clients with health concerns, he pointed out that planning options still exist, though the structure may look different, sometimes including vesting periods or phased-in benefits.

One of the more interesting examples showed how these strategies can work alongside traditional elder law planning. A long-term care annuity held outside of a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust can provide private pay during the look-back period, then deplete in a way that supports eventual Medicaid eligibility, while still giving the client flexibility early on.

A consistent theme throughout the webinar was that the landscape has changed. Many clients who were previously told there were no options may now have viable paths forward, particularly with newer hybrid and guaranteed issue products. That does not mean every client will be a fit, but it does mean the conversation is often worth having.

Ryan closed by bringing it back to the role attorneys play in this process. Long-term care planning is not about selecting a product. It is about building a strategy that fits with the client’s legal plan, financial picture, and family goals.

If you’re looking at a case and aren’t quite sure what options might be available, feel free to reach out to the AshBer team. We’re always happy to talk it through with you or put you in touch with Ryan to figure out whether this type of planning makes sense for your client.