Annuities, CDs, and Nursing Home Medicaid

All of the assets a Medicaid applicant and their spouse own come in to the Texas nursing home Medicaid eligibility process. What will happen and what can happen to those assets depends on some specific calculations and the facts involved in your case. However, one rule of thumb I recommend people keep in mind when facing a nursing home placement possibility in the next five years is to preserve flexibility. Flexibility can be an issue with assets like annuities.

Why You Need Flexibility for Houston Nursing Home Medicaid

Flexibility with the assets involved in a nursing home Medicaid eligibility case is key. Without it, you may no be able to obtain the maximum amount of asset protection allowed by law. The less flexible your assets are, the less options you may have. For example, asset protection is a lot more efficient with liquid assets. The money you lose in surrender fees is money you can’t protect for your family. So, if you want to preserve flexibility with your assets in case you or your spouse might need nursing home care in the next five years, think carefully before getting involved in CDs, annuities, or other long term investments.

Watch Out for Surrender Fees from Annuities

Those long term investments might come with a hefty surrender charge if you need to do some crisis planning. Some surrender fees can be as high as 16% which can be huge!

Give Your Power of Attorney Flexibility Also

I also recommend ensuring that your legal representatives have flexibility. They need flexibility in their authority over your assets so they can complete any steps if something happened to you. When it comes to Medicaid asset protection cases, the standard statutory power of attorney is insufficient in many cases. It just doesn’t give your trusted family member the powers they may need to protect assets. And if you don’t explicitly give them the required powers, they don’t have the legal authority to do it. For more information on that, check out a cheap power of attorney can be very expensive.