Paying for Long-Term Care Insurance with Tax-Free Funds

Prepared by Broadridge Investor Communication Solutions, Inc. Copyright 2013 for use by Evan R. Guido.

The high cost of long-term care can quickly drain your savings, absorb most of your income, and affect the quality of life for you and your family. Long-term care insurance (LTCI) allows you to share that cost with an insurance company. If you're concerned about protecting your assets and maintaining your financial independence, (LTCI) may be right for you.

But LTCI premiums can be expensive, and cash or income needed to cover those premiums may not be readily available. The good news is that there are several tax-free options that can help you pay for LTCI.

Using a health savings account

A health savings account, or HSA, is a tax advantaged savings account tied to a high deductible health insurance plan. An HSA is funded with pretax contributions up to certain annual limits set by the IRS. Any growth inside an HSA is tax deferred, and what you don't spend in one year can carry over to subsequent years. Just as importantly, withdrawals made from your HSA for qualified medical expenses are tax free.

Tax-qualified LTCI premiums are a qualified medical expense eligible to be paid from HSA funds. The maximum annual premium you can pay tax free is subject to long-term care premium deduction limits.

Convert taxable annuity to tax-free long-term care insurance

Generally, withdrawals from a nonqualified deferred annuity (premiums paid with after-tax dollars) are considered to come first from earnings, then from your investment (premiums paid) in the contract. The earnings portion of the withdrawal is treated as income to the annuity owner, subject to ordinary income taxes. IRC Section 1035 allows you to exchange one annuity for another without any immediate tax consequences, as long as certain requirements are met. But, what you may not know is that the Pension Protection Act (PPA) extends the tax-free exchange of annuities for qualified stand-alone LTCI or combination annuity/LTCI policies. This effectively allows you to purchase LTCI with annuity cash values that would otherwise have been taxable to you if withdrawn.

However, there are some potential drawbacks:

• You may incur annuity surrender charges when transferring your annuity.
• Transferring your annuity means you won't have the potential income the annuity could provide.
• While premiums for qualified LTCI are tax deductible as qualified medical expenses, annuity payments used to pay for long-term care are not tax deductible.
• Not all long-term care policies allow you to pay premiums in a lump sum, so you may have to make partial 1035 exchanges from the annuity to the LTCI company, but not all annuities allow partial 1035 exchanges.

HELPS may help

Another opportunity to pay for LTCI on a tax-free basis may be available to qualifying retired public safety officers. Part of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the Healthcare Enhancement for Local Public Safety (HELPS) Retirees Act, allows certain retired public safety officers to make tax-free withdrawals from their retirement plans to help pay for LTCI for themselves and their respective spouses and dependents.

Eligible retired public safety officers include law enforcement officers, firefighters, chaplains, and members of a rescue squad or ambulance crew. Public safety officers must have attained normal retirement age or they must be separated from service due to a disability. HELPS does not extend to 911 operators, dispatchers, and administrative personnel. In addition, if an eligible participant dies, the exclusion from tax for withdrawals does not extend to surviving spouses or other beneficiaries of the participant's retirement plan.

Eligible government retirement plans include qualified trusts, Section 403(a) plans, Section 403(b) annuities, and Section 457(b) plans. Up to $3,000 per year may be withdrawn on a pretax basis, and the money must be paid directly from the retirement plan to the LTCI company. However, not all retirement plans may allow for these withdrawals, and some state laws may not allow the tax-free treatment of distributions.

HSAs, the PPA, and the HELPS Act have opened the door to long-term care coverage for people who might otherwise have a hard time affording it. Your financial professional may be able to provide more information on these and other ways to help you plan for the potentially high cost of long-term care.

Got Questions? Ask Guido

Evan R. Guido

Vice President of Private Wealth Management

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