Long-term planning talks urged with parents

By Brian Bergstein
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Having been raised on a farm, Jeff Winton considers his mother strong and self-sufficient. Even so, after Winton's father suddenly died of a heart attack, Winton knew his mother would need help arranging her finances.

Rather than jumping into the subject right after the funeral, Winton, 46, waited a while, until his mother, Elaine, came to visit him in Long Valley, N.J. He asked her to apply for long-term-care insurance, and offered to help find a better retirement property in Florida than the one she had.

"It was kind of a shock to her and my family that there were a lot of loose ends that needed to be tied up," Winton said. "My advice would be to have this discussion sooner rather than later. If both parents are alive and in relatively good health, don't wait until one person has died and the other person is left alone to make a lot of these decisions."

For baby boomers like Winton, sitting down with aging parents to discuss legal, financial and long-term-care issues can be uncomfortable. But elder-care advisers say such talks are vital, to avoid nasty surprises and hasty decisions later.

In hopes of helping, the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging recently released a guide with suggested topics for boomer-age children to discuss with their parents — and advice on how to raise the issues appropriately.

The group said boomers should have the following goals in mind:

• Determining the benefits their parents are due to get from Social Security and pensions, and whether they might be eligible for other financial programs including Medicare and Medicaid.
• Making sure parents have living wills, and learning where their important financial records are located, including insurance policies, trust documents, tax returns and banking records.
• Figuring out whether long-term-care insurance is appropriate.
• Identifying what services are available in the parents' communities that can help them remain in their homes as long as possible. Such options include in-home assistance and home-modification services.

The association assembled the list by identifying the most common topics raised by callers to its Eldercare Locator, a free nationwide phone service paid for by the federal government to connect seniors with services available near them.

"Nobody wants to admit that they're getting older and need these things, whether it's the older person or the adult child," said Sandy Markwood, who heads the association, an umbrella group for nearly 900 senior-focused government agencies around the country.

"What we're trying to to is not make people think for the worst, but just to plan, and see what's available in their community."

Broaching these topics often isn't easy, especially for families in which finances were never openly discussed, or if aging parents are too proud to admit they could use help from their children.