While I would like to get a free trip to Stockholm to accept a prize of some kind, I must like Teddy Roosevelt, wait.
I did not mean that a hybrid would be bad, I just meant that it is impractical because of all the regulatory hurdles. Actually, I would love a “well designed” product like that. And, yes, it would probably be abused, so perhaps in the senior market, separate products are better. Oh, but wouldn't FFIEC, or whatever the new behemoth agency is called, protect the seniors?

Just kidding.

As would be expected, they view their own positions not that of the senior. Who would expect more? So what you are saying is, their risk of loss at that time in investing in mortgages secured by the homes of their clients exceeded their expectation in profits? And you attribute the difference in attitudes toward this combined transaction today as the ability to securitize those mortgages and sell the risk to others? What a novel idea, if we had not had the demise of AIG and the huge market losses in MBS securities!!

Did I see or read of any concern for the client? Thank goodness the world is not composed of overzealous insurance advocates.

Speaking of the ignorant, who is Senator McKasskil? I think you are referring to Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), correct? Since you decry the ignorant, I searched on the Internet for your senator whom I have never heard of and perhaps found the person you so intellectually reference. Since I know your mentality exceeds those who disagree with your position, I will use your spelling from here on out to address the senator from Missouri.

Some of those who are mentally inferior to you, especially elder law attorneys I deal with, have questioned the need for LTC in cases where the senior went into debt to buy inadequate amounts of LTC when in fact what they ultimately ended up with and needed anyway was MediCal.

What business acumen does this require? Did I hear Mr. Gecko in the background correctly analyzing it as “greed?”

Maybe giving credit is not what some of us think about foisting his suggestion. Some of us might call it galling chutzpa. Excuse a few of us for viewing this as an ethical issue.

There are two distinct groups of seniors: the elderly and those who are on their way. CSA education caused me to take note of the aging of my father who is now in his nineties. Up until a few years ago, certain patterns were fundamentally true of his aging. One was his strict preference for beef and potatoes for dinner. As he was fond of saying, he ate his last fish when he was 9. But now when we go out to eat, he eats blackened salmon. His reason is that he can taste it; yet he considers himself a strict beef and potatoes man to this day.

Obviously other areas are not what they were when Dad was 60. The trouble is determining which he truly understands are diminished or changed and how he is coping with diminished and changed capacities. Unlike most his age, he lives by himself, gets up daily, showers, shaves, and gets dressed to take care of his business activities. He must meet education requirements for his business licenses and is, therefore, keenly aware that he lacks sufficient agility and capacity to understand the new and ever expanding field he is licensed in. Fortunately he can limit his practice to those areas where he is competent and notifies his customers of areas in which he is not competent.

The trouble is I have met those who are more mentally incapacitated in some areas at 62 than my father at his age. Yet very few seniors are basket cases in their 60’s but the quality of their decision making skills lack the vigor, rigor, agility, and other factors needed to evaluate highly integrated insurance products. Now add that to a reverse mortgage and all rhyme and reason as to the reasonable expectation that seniors can readily evaluate such products in light of their own situations, flies right out the door. Too many times I have heard seniors declare when confused about reverse mortgages, “Honey, I am sure you would not sell me anything that was really bad for me. Now would you, huh?”

While counseling may help seniors evaluate insurance that is funded through reverse mortgages, most of us believe counseling is stretched to its capacity already. Insurance companies are always exploring new products, ideas, combinations, and other approaches to sell more product; this is natural. When it comes to seniors, such strategies should be greatly restricted.