Medicaid eligibility requirement is determined by looking at a person’s income and assets. When considering eligibility, certain personal assets are considered exempt and are therefore not included in the calculation of a person’s income. Such exempt assets include a person’s: home, wedding rings, burial plot, car, personal and household belongings (up to about $2000), and life insurance policies with a total cash value under $5000. (more…)

People over 50 have a growing need for asset protection because they have more assets worth protecting. But professionals who work in the field say that insurance coverage spreads unevenly along income insurances lines. More affluent seniors tend to be heavily-insured; less affluent ones tend to be under-insured. This discrepancy reflects the insurance market at large. It may have special meaning to people planning their lives around fixed family incomes. (more…)

Locating the correct home insurance coverage might not be particularly high on your list of financial priorities and, alongside such things as investment decisions and estate planning issues, questions about the language in your homeowners plan may seem barely worth considering. Even So, the more successful you become, the more complicated your asset-protection needs are going to be—and the more you have to lose. (more…)