Pennsylvania - South Central

Certainly, one significant factor that has altered the landscape of meetings is the impact of COVID-19. This has led to a noticeable increase in peoples comfort with conducting meetings via platforms like Zoom. For at least a year, the majority of our meetings were conducted exclusively through video conferencing. During this time, we have encountered few issues, and even our octogenarians and nonagenarians have been able to successfully connect and navigate the process.Incorporating a family member residing out of town into a telephone or Zoom video conference is easily achievable. We strongly encourage the involvement of family members in all meetings and have the capability to easily include participants who are not physically present in our office.When scheduling an appointment, kindly inform us if there will be a mix of in-person and virtual attendees, and we will seamlessly accommodate this arrangement within our planning process. We eagerly anticipate collaborating with you and your family.  

If I had a quarter for every time, I was asked this question I would have a lot of quarters for sure. Many LTC (long term care) companies made significant errors in their original underwriting of LTC policies. As a result, many companies are no longer in business. The ones that are in business have greatly changed their practices. However, the biggest issue that has come out of the miscalculation of LTC is that people who still have policies are losing their benefits and their premiums are going through the roof. The question now is what do we do?This is a question that I receive on a regular basis in my estate planning and elder law practice. By way of full disclosure, I am not a licensed insurance agent, and I am not licensed to be able to sell long-term care insurance or any other insurance product. I am an attorney with approximately 20 years of experience in estate planning and elder law and I happen to be a Certified Elder Law Attorney under authorization of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. While I am not the person who will sell the products, I am certainly an individual who has been advising numerous clients over the years and believe in the benefits of a long-term care policy and what they can provide. We have done numerous other blogs about long-term care insurance and the benefits of said policies.When long-term care insurance first gained popularity, many companies completely missed out on the actuarial tables and in predicting what people were going to need. Because of this drastic miscalculation, most of the companies who originally were in the markets for long-term care insurance are no longer there. The few standing companies that are left are trying to figure out ways to make up for the mistakes of the past. Because of that, they are often forced to increase premiums and decrease benefits. Although these companies do have to get permission from the insurance board, it is not a very difficult proposition and, in most cases, they will almost always be able to receive permission. The most difficult part is that individuals have been paying into a plan for a number of years and now are learning that theyre going to have to decrease their benefits and even then, they may have to increase the premiums that they are paying. It is heart wrenching to have to provide guidance in these situations and ultimately, I always encourage them to bring in their financial professionals to try to make the decisions. It is as much about the numbers and the common sense as it is about the emotion involved. It is very easy for us to get disgusted and upset about what is occurring, but it is a cold, harsh reality of the miscalculations that were made in the past. In some instances, increasing premiums and decreasing benefits is the only way some of these companies will survive.My best advice to any and all people who are faced with this dilemma is to write out the pros and cons and to try to make the evaluation and determination about numbers and as little as possible about emotion of the situation. It is too easy to get hung up on the principle of the manner, but the truth is principals are expensive and cause wars. Make the best decision for you and your family based upon the information that you have in front of you. Long-term care is not going away and dropping the policy out of spite is not going to help anyone.If you are looking for advice in regards to estate planning, please call our office at 717-844-9639 or click the link here and we will contact you.

A week probably does not go by in my estate planning and elder law practice that I do not hear this question. We spend a lot of time in our weekly workshops in our office answering this question and also much of our time during our free consultations also discussing this in detail. I believe that the major reason why people make this their primary question is because of a lot of information that is out in the mainstream, the media, from national companies or national spokespeople who often urge people to avoid probate at all costs.I was very fortunate several years ago that I was able to travel the country training and teaching lawyers all over the country. It was an extremely enjoyable experience and I learned and grew tremendously from it. One of the main things that hit me during my time educating and teaching is that each and every state in the country has very different rules.Most attorneys are only licensed in one state and typically do not get licensed in multiple states because of the exams and costs that are associated with it. It became very clear to me over the years that each state is very different in regard to its probate rules as well as how difficult probate is.Many of the national trust companies and national spokespeople live and come out of states where the probate process is very burdensome, overwhelming, arduous, confusing, expensive, and time prohibitive. In those states, it makes a lot of sense to take steps in order to be able to avoid probate so that their clients do not have to go through those processes and spend the time and cost involved with it.Several very good business individuals understood what a valuable opportunity it could be for them to be a spokesperson or to advertise living trusts and other opportunities to avoid probate. Rather than take the time to research each states rules, they make blanket statements and characterizations that seem to apply to every state but in reality do not.Yes. There are certainly ways to avoid probate, and if the situation is correct, we will often make recommendations to do things such as creating a trust or having access jointly owned with another individual, or using beneficiary designations on accounts. In our workshops, we spend a lot of time talking about these and many other opportunities to avoid probate and how to take advantage of them.My concern is that without proper advice and guidance, oftentimes these tricks and solutions often arent necessary and can be overkill.If you are interested or believe that you are interested in avoiding probate for the sake of avoiding probate, please come to one of our upcoming workshops to learn not only about probate but also about the options that we would use to avoid probate and the pros and cons of those.It is imperative that people be provided good advice in regard to this and any implications and complications that could come from decisions that are made. Remember, in Pennsylvania avoiding probate does not equate to avoiding inheritance tax.If you would like to learn more, please give our office a call at 717-844-9218.

Whats not to love? You may think you know, but peek into my world as a Bellomo employee and lead of the firms Life Care Planning (LCP) program for a moment.An LCP client cant remember how to play 500 Rummy? Amber and Meg spend the morning playing cards with him. The wife of a hospitalized client is distraught because the only nursing home bed is 2 hours away? Sharee alerts Meg, who provides education, emotional support, and advocates with the discharge planner.A clients bride is struggling? Jennah gets a heads up and sends flowers to brighten her day. A clients financial planner needs clarification on next steps? Jeff immediately reaches out to him. A long-time Bellomo client is hospitalized and dying? Two team members visit to love on him and sit with the familyand our whole team grieves.Another LCP client is dying? Meg is at the bedside for hours, hugging on his bride and helping to navigate decisions. The wife isnt sure what to do now that hes died? Michelle calls to ease her worries and begin her probate education. I had lunch with the bride yesterday. We talked about her journey, the tough decisions made along the way, her gratitude to the facility and hospice teams for their exceptional care. Weeks ago, the wife insisted that I thank Jeff for hershe called our team cracker jacks. Yesterday, she talked about how thankful she is to have found our firm, citing above all else, the peace of mind she has knowing that our team is in her life, protecting her.When I returned to the office, a teammate stopped me to ask how she was doingAndi was sincerely interested and relieved to hear that she was doing well. Today I find myself thankful that this mans bride is still going to be in my life, as despite her husband having died, she has signed on for another year of maintenance and another year of LCP for herself and her disabled adult son. You knew that you loved Bellomo & Associates, right?Trust me, the Bellomo employeesyep, all of us cracker jackslove this incredible law firm just as much!