The Retirement Risk No One Wants to Talk About

In this episode of Second Half Conversations, we explore a topic many families avoid until they are forced to face it:
How do you prepare for the possibility of needing long-term care?

Sondra Ziegler is joined by Morgan Marx, Mindy Gallina, and Talia Cyr of Heritage Wealth Alliance for a thoughtful conversation about one of the most overlooked risks in retirement planning and how it can affect both financial security and family well-being.

Together, they discuss the realities of long-term care, common misconceptions about Medicare coverage, and why so many families find themselves making difficult decisions during a crisis instead of planning ahead.

The conversation explores how extended care needs can impact retirement income, investment strategies, legacy goals, and the financial stability of a surviving spouse. They also share personal experiences that illustrate the emotional and practical challenges families often face when caring for aging loved ones.

Throughout the episode, they discuss the importance of viewing long-term care planning as part of a broader financial and estate planning strategy—one that helps preserve dignity, reduce stress, and provide families with more options when care is needed.

Most importantly, this episode is about protecting the people you love. It's a conversation about caregiving, preparation, financial confidence, and creating a plan that allows families to focus on each other rather than scrambling to make decisions during difficult moments.

Highlights from this episode:

• What long-term care really means and how it differs from traditional healthcare coverage
• Common misconceptions about Medicare and extended care expenses
• How long-term care costs can impact retirement income and financial security
• The connection between caregiving, family dynamics, and financial planning
• Why planning ahead can help protect a surviving spouse
• The emotional and physical realities faced by family caregivers
• How personalized planning can help families prepare for future care needs
• Why long-term care planning is ultimately an act of love for the people who may one day care for you
  
  

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host

Sondra Ziegler

Executive Director of Ziegler Estate Law Firm

What is Second Half Conversations?

The second half of life can be full of meaningful moments—more time with family, new opportunities, and the freedom to focus on what matters most. At the same time, it often brings important questions about planning, caregiving, relationships, and the future.

So that’s exactly what we talk about.

We'll tackle difficult topics like estate planning and care navigation, strategic aspects of taxes and business succession planning, and the dynamics of relationships and seasons that come with the second half of life.

Because if done right, the second half can be the better half.

Sondra Ziegler: 00:00

Welcome to Second Half Conversations. I'm your host, Sondra Ziegler. This is a space to discuss all kinds of topics about the second half of life, from complicated legal topics like wealth protection and business succession planning that we break down in a practical way, to long term care planning and care navigation when you have a loved one on a care journey, to leaning into fully experiencing new seasons of life, of work and relationships. Our team and guests are here to equip you to take full advantage of where you're at. Because if done right, the second half is the better half. Let's get to it.

Sondra Ziegler: 00:40

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Second Half Conversations. I'm your host, Sondra Ziegler, executive director of of Ziegler Estate Law Group. Our mission is to provide a road map for families navigating complicated journey that is the second half of life so that they can protect what they've built and preserve their legacy.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:01

Today, I am joined by Morgan Marx, Talia Cyr, and Mindy Gallina of Heritage Wealth Alliance. And we are going to be talking about the retirement risk that no one wants to talk about and how it can quietly unravel a carefully crafted estate plan if you don't include this. But before we get to that, I love to ask people their why. How did you become a certified financial planner, Morgan Marx? And then I would love for you, Talia, to tell us your why.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:40

How did you get into this work? And, Mindy Gallina, tell us what drew you to financial planning and this area of financial planning in particular. And I'd also just love to hear the inside scoop of how you ladies got together and joined forces.

Morgan Marx: 01:59

Yeah, yeah. Sondra, thank you. So we're super excited to be here. I think for me, you know, my why is deeply personal And it goes back to, you know, growing up, I'm from a small town in Kansas, and we didn't really have access to what I would say is a whole lot of information. I found that over the course of my career, that talking about finances and legacy planning and how to care for loved ones, it's not really something that families discuss openly.

Morgan Marx: 02:34

And it's really kind of hidden and it's not something that at least in our family, and I know a lot of families that we've worked with, is really open to discuss. And these things are so big and so impactful on generational wealth that when I experienced, not just once, but unfortunately twice with both of my grandmothers having to enter into different forms of long term care and that journey looks so different. And the outcome ended up unfortunately being the same, where a lot of the options that were available to us, because there was no pre planning that was done, were really stripped away. And we had very limited options. And it's something that I knew going forward for the rest of our family, that I didn't want that to be the case anymore, and that there had to be something that we should be doing.

Morgan Marx: 03:41

And I am just as guilty as most financial advisors that, you know, that's kind of a part you skim over until you need it. And, you know, you look at the financials and you think, Hey, everything's okay. But then when you actually do the math and you do the planning work, you find out that there's a much better way to tackle it. And if you're not consciously putting in effort to address it, then you're not doing your fiduciary duty to your clients. And at least identifying the certain pitfalls that could be present in their planning work.

Morgan Marx: 04:23

So my journey into the second half strategies, if you will, really resonates from deeply personal experiences within my own family that I wanted to make sure that I educated myself because knowledge is power. And now that I do have that education and have my certified financial planner certification, I feel like I'm better equipped now to prepare our families for what they don't know.

Sondra Ziegler: 04:54

Morgan, you said something that I would like our listeners to understand. You mentioned fiduciary duty. Can you explain to us what that is and why it's important?

Morgan Marx: 05:06

Yeah, so a fiduciary duty is that I have to put our client and prospective clients interest above all else. And so we come at it from an approach that no matter what the answer is, we're going to provide you with that information so that you can make an informed decision. And so very, you know, similar, Sondra, to, you know, Nathan and the crew that you have there, we also are fiduciaries and have that legal liability to our clients to make sure that the advice that we are giving is in their best interest.

Sondra Ziegler: 05:49

Okay. Yeah. And that is one of the reasons among many that we love working with y'all is that we know if we have a client who does not already have an advisor and they're looking to us, you know, who should I call? You know, if they've gotten to this point in their lives and they're like, you know, my asset picture is just more complicated than it used to be and I would like some help. I would like help with retirement planning, or I'd like help with income planning for retirement, or maybe they have formed a trust and they're putting assets in the trust, and now's the time to actually get a professional involved.

Sondra Ziegler: 06:28

We love to call y'all because we know that, and you hit the nail on the head, just like we have to act in our clients' best interest, so do you. And so we have an umbrella, I feel like, of protection that way, where we're all pulling in the same direction. We're not going to make recommendations that we wouldn't make to our own family members, and neither are you. If this were your mother, your father, your family member, and you were looking at, okay, how do we best manage these assets? That's, you're going to be making those recommendations that are in their best interest. So important.

Sondra Ziegler: 07:07

So, okay, so Talia, tell us how you got into financial planning and advising and how you got together with Morgan and Mindy in this endeavor.

Talia Cyr: 07:21

Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to graduate from Bryant actually a year early. So I was a COVID high school grad and really did not know what I wanted to do post graduation. I knew I was really interested in stats. I took AP stats in high school and I loved it. So I actually researched what is the best major to major in if you're interested in stats.

Talia Cyr: 07:45

So from that, I had chosen economics at Bryant University. And throughout my time at Bryant, I kind of still didn't really know which path I wanted to end up in. And my junior year of college, I had taken a class that was preparing individuals for the Series seven. And that really opened up my avenues of different routes for careers in the financial industry, because I always thought, Oh, you need to go into the buy side of investment banking. I had interned at a firm in Boston.

Talia Cyr: 08:16

They won't be named, but I actually interned there starting my freshman year and they kept inviting me back. So it was a total of three years I was working for them. And I thought, okay, that's what I'm going be doing. I'm going to stay with them, live in Boston, go into investment research and make boo goo dollars from being a post grad. And then I realized this is not at all what I wanted to do, especially from just looking at spreadsheets all day long and sitting in the cubicle for eighty hours, just researching three companies.

Talia Cyr: 08:46

I'd said, okay, this is not for me. I really liked helping people. And by taking that class my junior year and opening my opportunities to enter in to planning and just getting my licensing, it really was a great, great path for me. And I really love what I do every single day because like I said, it's really helping people. I was fortunate enough to be raised by a single dad and him and his family came from Portugal and really actually started off with nothing, like literally $0. So hearing, growing up and hearing his perspective on money was always just a little different.

Talia Cyr: 09:27

It was something that he always talked about it more in a, you need to be doing X, Y, Z to prepare, to be better than what we had. And he always said, every generation that's here in The United States, want better than what we had growing up. So thankfully he put me in a position to help me to be able to go to school, go to college and enter in a career path, which I always say, if I didn't enter this, I would be in probably in a different spot from even just my day to day knowledge because you learn so much by doing it, by learning about it. And I feel like I can better help both my friends, my peers, those that are in the same age group as me to be better confident and equipped, especially women, because most of us don't get told about different financial related topics. So my goal was really just to help other people feel more confident to make decisions that are actually going to better themselves and not just feel manipulated into financial decisions because that's what their husbands or dads or brothers told them to do, or even their advisors told them to do.

Talia Cyr: 10:28

But it's because that's a decision that's gonna really benefit them and they feel educated and confident in that decision as well. You asked how I started working with Morgan, I think. So I started working with Morgan this past July, so July 2025. And I was so happy to be asked to be on her team. So I was doing kind of a combination of working for our firm from the home office side. And then I knew I really wanted to enter into more of a planning and holistic planning route. I really love the work of George Kinder. George Kinder works on essentially doing life planning. So it's kind of what we do and what Morgan does. Look at the whole picture of somebody's lives.

Talia Cyr: 11:14

And when we're on client meetings, it's not just about, okay, here's the performance of S&P 500 and this is how it's gonna benefit you. It's actually, what are your goals? What are we doing to get there? And why is this valuable for you and your family? And Morgan has already been kind of doing the George Kinder Method without even calling it that.

Talia Cyr: 11:33

So it was really a great fit. And I've been honored to learn from her as I'm in the pursuit of my CFP as well to hopefully get that designation and sit for that exam next year.

Sondra Ziegler: 11:43

Okay, I love that story. I love the, it started out as sort of a nerdy fascination with numbers. And, but then you realize, I really want to put this in service of people. That that's your heart is really to help people and educate them and equip them with knowledge that's going to enable them to make the best decisions. And that totally fits with what I know about Morgan and what we just heard in her story and being motivated by her family's story of not having that information and now wanting to equip people with that information and be able to plan for these life events that could, you know, greatly impact their well-being, their savings.

Sondra Ziegler: 12:31

Okay, so Mindy, now I'm ready to hear your why. How did you get into this field?

Mindy Gallina: 12:39

Yeah, so I had a different trajectory than both Morgan and Talia. I actually, my husband and I both worked for quite some time for nonprofits. And we loved our work. We loved helping people. That was really just one of those things that it wasn't obviously a very lucrative job, but it was where we that was basically our passion.

Mindy Gallina: 13:06

We loved, loved people, loved helping them. But after fifteen years of that, we both decided it was time to pivot. And really, there were a few factors that kind of led us to this decision. But one of the major ones, which is why I find this particular topic so important, is we were going to have to start taking care of my mother-in-law. So we both needed a different career that would have allowed us a little more flexibility so that we could be with her.

Mindy Gallina: 13:35

So my husband went into Medicare. He's doing Medicare insurance. And then I went into the financial sector, initially starting out at a CPA firm, actually. And while that was not necessarily where I thought I would end up, I did love my clients, and I loved the interaction that we had. And I was actually put in charge of helping the whole firm's clients get into payroll and all that type of thing.

Mindy Gallina: 14:06

Well, that always led to other conversations. It always led to, should I do a four zero one? Should I do a simple IRA? Should I contribute to my IRA? And I'm the one who's getting these questions.

Mindy Gallina: 14:16

So I actually approached one of the managing partners of William Joseph and had mentioned what was happening. And he's like, Well, why don't you go get your license and then you can help them? And I thought, Okay. Me thinking it was going to be super easy. Like, Sure, why not?

Mindy Gallina: 14:35

That's fine. Somehow I got my license. And so that's just kind of how I initially started. But then I found out I really, really loved this. And I loved being able to get with them and help them just kind of figure out this and that and what's good for the company, what's good for them.

Mindy Gallina: 14:56

It was so much fun. So when the opportunity arose for me to actually go into financial planning full time, I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Totally want to do that. So I started kind of helping a couple of advisors for the firm doing their helping them with their clients while I'm building my own book and then also doing back office work for William Joseph. And that just was like, it was scratching all of my itches because I really got to have some fun with my clients and really got to get really close to them.

Mindy Gallina: 15:27

But this is also now leading into the long term care planning as well. And around that time, we ended up bringing my mother-in-law to live with us. So I have seen firsthand what an extended care situation can do to families when it happens because it usually happens quickly, unexpectedly, and now you're in it. So I've seen the importance of planning ahead. And that's kind of what led me to Morgan.

Mindy Gallina: 16:00

When I heard what Morgan was doing a lot like Talia, I love the fact that she has such amazing relationships with her clients. And she is taking a look at the whole thing. And I loved that too, because the one thing about financial planning is it can very much stay in that silo. And a lot of planners never break out of the investment side of this job. And there is so much more to wealth and to wealth planning than just the investments.

Mindy Gallina: 16:30

So to be able to now look at it on the whole spectrum, you're looking at tax implications. You're looking at other assets outside of just investments. You're looking at long term care, how that kind of an event would affect the plan. So you're looking at all these different components altogether and you're looking at the client and going, Okay, if this is your goal, this is where we need to go. And they love that and they trust you.

Mindy Gallina: 16:59

And I want to earn that trust. When I grow up, I want to be like Morgan. So that's why we ended up working together.

Morgan Marx: 17:09

Thank you. And I can tell you, from my perspective, I am so blessed to have these two wonderful ladies on our team and very excited to be able to mentor them and to be able to show them what good planning entails and that it does go beyond just, you know, the paper and the numbers. It's about creating those relationships with your clients and really figuring out what their goals are and what their values are and what they envision their second half of life to look like. And a lot of times those conversations are not easy to have. And so it is an honor that we get to be the catalyst to those conversations that a lot of people just kind of shy away from.

Sondra Ziegler: 18:00

Well, that's a great segue actually, to circle back to our topic today, the retirement risk that no one wants to talk about. So spoiler alert, so I'm sure our listeners by now know we're talking about long term care. In thinking about all of, well, Morgan and Mindy, your stories, my grandparents did not utilize long term care. So I did not have that story in my own family. However, Nathan, Nathan's family on both sides, he had grandparents who needed long term care.

Sondra Ziegler: 18:42

And in one case, the, you know, their savings were pretty well wiped out by the need for long term care. You know, in another instance, he has a of a great example of a horror story of how people in their later years or who are in long term care can be vulnerable to being taken advantage of. So that's a whole another podcast for another day. But the need to have good planning in place, to have good agents clearly delineated in good powers of attorney, all of that is part of a holistic plan along with the financial aspect of it, of how are we going to pay for care if we need it. So let's just jump in.

Sondra Ziegler: 19:29

And I want to just throw it out there instead of assuming, let's throw out the question, what is long term care? And does Medicare pay for long term care? Doesn't Medicare pay for long term care?

Morgan Marx: 19:45

It is a very common misconception. So, you know, long term care, when you think about the difference between your health insurance, So Medicare is a health insurance for adults over the age of 65. And so when you have Medicare, there are certain things that Medicare will pay for, like your hospital visits, your rehabilitation services. But those are all what we consider short term or acute care. And those are conditions or illnesses that you or that your doctors would reasonably expect for you to get better from by way of treatments or medications, rehabilitation, where we get into the conversation of long term care.

Morgan Marx: 20:46

And I know there's a lot of negative connotations when you say long term care because immediately people almost think nursing home. And that's not always it. So we change the conversation from long term care to extended care. And what that means is that when Medicare will no longer pay for your hospital rehabilitative services, and essentially when the assessments by the medical professionals come back, that more than likely you will not be able to do certain activities of daily living. That is when you get into a scenario that is considered an extended long term care event that you more than likely will not be fully recovering from and will need some assistance depending severity is dependent, right?

Morgan Marx: 21:47

But you may not be able to fully function as you were prior to whatever event, you know, created it. So those are considered events or conditions that have an expected period of longer than a ninety day period. And so when you hear that Medicare will pay for the first one hundred days, That's true if there's certain conditions that are met. And the average is much, much less than that, that Medicare actually pays for. And when a loved one, what we call it is plateaus, so let's say that it's not even more than likely an accident that gets them into there.

Morgan Marx: 22:37

I'll give, you know, my grandmother as an example. You know, she was living independently on her own. She went to go get up out of her chair and had a fall. And that fall, unfortunately, because she had osteoporosis, so for us ladies, that's a much bigger issue, that the osteoporosis in and of itself may not be the debilitating factor, but a fall could, you know, lead into a long term care event. And so when that happened, she was able to go to the hospital, had surgery, went into rehab, but she was never then able to actually go back and live independently because it was a cascade of events that led to that point.

Morgan Marx: 23:28

And so we found ourselves very quickly going from a situation, and we hear this from our clients all the time, that you go from a situation where the loved one is at home living independently, and then all of a sudden an accident is usually what ends up being the catalyst to get them into a facility and needing that long term care. And so even though she was progressing, and Medicare paid for quite a few days, there was a point that she plateaued and she wasn't getting better. And I remember getting the call saying, We don't have a choice anymore. We either figure out where grandma's going to be put because she can't go home, And we're going to have to figure out a way to how to pay for this. And I know Sondra, you probably hear that story, almost identical story all the time.

Morgan Marx: 24:31

But I can tell you from my own personal experience, it's terrifying not to know where all of your loved ones assets are and then all of a sudden being responsible for how do we pay for this care? What is our budget? Like, do we even know how much money grandma even has? And so for the family, it's terrifying to try and make decisions for your loved one, not having all of that information available to you, and then having to try and piece together everything and doing the absolute best that you can. So when we kind of reverse here and we say people that actually have a plan for this, the experience for the families is so much different because they have a dedicated and earmarked place that they know if something happens, that's where we're going to go.

Morgan Marx: 25:28

And as a fiduciary, we'll look at all the different aspects of how you could earmark those funds. But the point is, is to having a plan so that your loved ones are not put in a position that they have to try and scramble and figure it out.

Sondra Ziegler: 25:49

Yes. So in our office doing legal planning that we call long term care planning, we're looking at, do you have estate planning documents at all? If you do, when were they last updated? A lot of people have estate planning documents from when the kids were little, and they haven't updated them. And so this is a new reality knowing that you have a long term care journey changes a lot of things about what your estate planning should look like.

Sondra Ziegler: 26:22

And a lot of people may not know that because, I mean, think about it. If you have a typical couple and the husband and wife are each other's agents on their powers of attorney, well, guess what? If one of them is now incapacitated for some reason, or they have a chronic illness, they probably can't serve anymore as that first agent on the power of attorney for their spouse. So where I'm going with this is we have a set of planning that we do.

Sondra Ziegler: 26:52

It's new estate planning in that situation usually is what's called for that recognizes the reality of a long term care journey for one of the spouses and what changes need to be made in terms of who's gonna make decisions for themselves and for the other spouse, but then also how do we protect assets from the cost of care? What are the rules of Medicaid? Could we get eligible for that? All of that. But there's a whole financial part of this that you're talking about that shows up in terms of retirement risk.

Sondra Ziegler: 27:27

So how would you talk about, I mean, how can you help us understand the risk that long term care, the need for long term care is to your retirement and your security, that this is not just a healthcare issue, it's not just an estate planning issue, but where does it show up in your planning? Is it in cash flow planning, the security of the surviving spouse, legacy goals? Like help us understand what you're helping that family navigate.

Morgan Marx: 27:59

Yeah, and I think the answer is all of the above, right? And so we get so focused on getting to the top of the mountain, right? We want to retire. We want to make sure that we have enough money that's saved. And a lot of times we're able to get there just fine.

Morgan Marx: 28:20

But it's the journey on the way back down the mountain that is critical. And so when we talk about long term care should be a function of retirement income planning, because when you have a care event and you have to start paying 3, 4, 5, sometimes $10,000 a month for care, That first is going to come from your income. And so most retirees are on some form of either fixed income or receiving income from their investments, their required minimum distributions. And so when you no longer have enough income being generated from your assets, then what do you have to do? Then it no longer becomes an income conversation, it becomes a liquidation of your assets conversation.

Morgan Marx: 29:18

And that is where, depending on how long of a care journey and what the market is doing at that point in time, it could have pretty significant tax implications. Withdrawal rates more than likely will be a lot higher than they were intended to be. And you also run the risk of, you know, the market. What it what is it doing? And so if that's where we're planning on pulling, you know, our funds from, what's the market doing at that time?

Morgan Marx: 29:49

Are we, you know, in a time where we have, you know, trade wars going on and some of those things, or are we in a boom? There's tax implications that can be pretty hefty. But then also there's a lot of inefficiencies when you do it that way. You are dollar for dollar making sure that you are using and funding your own care, which that's one of the solutions that we look at. Because if that is the case and if that's what you wanna do, we will plan for that.

Morgan Marx: 30:23

But the problem is is that when you are talking retirement income, most planners are using CPI. They're not using the healthcare inflation rate, which is much higher. So you cannot commingle the funds that you have intended to potentially use for care down the road with your other funds because the benchmarks are completely different. It needs a different rate of return consistently over a period of time that you may not need within your regular retirement income.

Sondra Ziegler: 30:58

So it sounds like what you're describing to me is a bucket, a separate bucket that we're looking at to fund long term care, at least that's where my head's going, because you mentioned the CPI, that's the consumer price index, is that what you're talking about? Yes. And that's assuming a rate of growth in the costs, right? And so what you're saying is that healthcare costs are growing at a higher rate, right? Do you know what rate they're growing at currently?

Morgan Marx: 31:29

Yeah, your regular, you know, financial planning more than likely uses around 3%. You know, obviously inflation, you know, has been a little bit higher and Talia, you may be able to touch on this. She gives a presentation to our clients every quarter about inflation. So Talia, do you wanna touch on what regular consumer inflation is looking like right now?

Talia Cyr: 31:54

Yeah, as of March, when we had our last CPI numbers reported, it was about 3.5%. Part of that also has to do with, it's gone a little higher now because of what we're facing unfortunately with the tensions in Iran. Gas prices have only continued to gone up and that pushed up inflation. But when we take a look at why we use 3%, it's because we're really looking at the thirty year average. So when we track inflation over a thirty year period of time, it's gonna go up, it's gonna go down. The federal reserve has a 2% target, but that 3% is really the sweet spot of what we've been seeing over that course of time.

Sondra Ziegler: 32:32

So over the last couple years, it's been considerably higher than that, hasn't it? Or is that not true?

Talia Cyr: 32:39

During 2021 and 2022, yeah, it was closer to the force. So when we're taking a look at running healthcare assumptions at 5% and regular inflation is at 4%, it probably would have been a lot higher if we were looking at this back in 2021 or 2022. And we know even though we run it as a 5% as well for inflation, the cost just there's a crisis in general in healthcare in The United States, especially those working in those industries. So those individuals are seeking more of a demand and they want higher compensation, it's going to raise the cost of healthcare even more than that 5% potential that we're budgeting for. So our goal too, as planners is constantly monitoring it and say, Hey, do we need to make changes? Because that 5% right now may be 6% next year.

Sondra Ziegler: 33:33

Absolutely. Okay, so tell me when you're helping people plan, and I would love it if you could think of some, like, life examples, and they could be, you know, horror stories, or they could be just regular examples. But when you're helping people plan, what are the major categories of solutions that you're going to consider when we're talking about preparing to pay for long term care?

Morgan Marx: 34:03

So being fiduciary planners, we are unbiased in what the solution or, you know, the end result is. And so the first thing that we take a look at is just as is. If you did absolutely nothing to change what you're doing, what does that look like? And are you okay with the results if we plug in a long term care scenario? And I also want to mention that when we are doing these projections, we're using tools to be able to actually help us get a really good sense of what a potential long term care journey could look like for you as an individual.

Morgan Marx: 34:56

You know, Mindy, I think if you want to touch base on what our assessment is, and then what we do with that to help us figure out, are we going based on averages or how do we come up with what number are we even shooting for?

Mindy Gallina: 35:14

Sure, I'd be happy to. Yeah, we do a health and lifestyle assessment on all of our clients when we're talking about looking into what an extended care situation would look like because we don't want to just stick with averages. We want to know specifically what may happen to our client down the road. What would that situation look like? So do they have Alzheimer's dementia in the family?

Mindy Gallina: 35:40

Have they had cancer in the family? How much do they exercise? How many vegetables do they eat every day? All these important questions that kind of give us a good idea of where their health and mental health may be at this time, and what it might do down the road. So when we go through that, what it actually does is give us a much more realistic picture of what could possibly happen down the road to them.

Mindy Gallina: 36:07

So a lot of times what we're seeing is the national average for their sex, their age, their lifestyle is much shorter than what their actual average is. So we're seeing that these extended care situations could be pushed out a little bit longer, but also last longer as well. So when we're looking into this information, it gives us a good idea of, Okay, it looks like they may have few like four to six years that we may have to plan for. And what is that going to look like for them? Are there things they can do now to better the odds that their later years, they will be healthier longer?

Mindy Gallina: 36:48

And so we give them those suggestions as well to see if, hey, get up and take a walk every day. A lot of people are very sedentary, and it's amazing how just a little bit of motion every day can actually better your life for a lot longer. So we give them all this information, and then we look at, Okay, here's the reality. How are we going to take this into account? What are we going to plan for? What is this going look like?

Talia Cyr: 37:16

I was just going to say so many different advisors, they plan to, Woman, you're going live to 95, men, you're going to live to 90. And that's fine if they wanna do that on their terms. But what we're seeing is that if you already know you have a family history of cancer, for instance, in your family, and let's say all the women in your family passed away in their sixties, you probably have a higher chance of passing away around that time frame than to live to 95. So, obviously, it's good to to plan for, yeah, you may need funds to be stretched out for longer. But if that's not your specific need, then we're not gonna plan for the averages. We're gonna plan for you because you're not average.

Sondra Ziegler: 37:57

So, okay, that's fascinating. So you're able to, you're collecting some information on their health history, on their family's health history. I'm guessing you're asking like, what was the age your parents when they died?

Mindy Gallina: 38:15

Parents and grandparents actually will give us a really good idea of what longevity looks like in their family.

Sondra Ziegler: 38:20

Wow, okay. And so then you're able to then make a lot more specialized recommendations for how long does this portfolio need to last? And given the medical threats that are in that medical history, one type may dictate more long term care than another. For instance, if you, someone who has, they have a history of heart attack in their family, maybe that doesn't dictate a long care scenario, whereas early onset dementia certainly would. So, okay, that is really fascinating.

Sondra Ziegler: 39:03

And it makes me wonder, just a little aside here, it makes me wonder with all of the technology, the wearable technology that we have now, how it's gonna sort of aid that effort to do better planning. Because I don't know, Mindy, when you said, how active are they? How much exercise are they getting? How are they eating? When all of those factors feed in, now we have technology that really helps.

Sondra Ziegler: 39:28

I'm thinking about the smart scales they can stand on that measure their body composition, their muscle mass, and you know, the wearables that tell you how many steps you're getting and how you're sleeping and all of that really would be a shame to be doing financial planning that took none of that into account, that took none of what you're saying. I mean, I know pulling in that type of data would be like maybe a few years down the road, but doing what you're doing of let's really get at longevity in your family. What does that look like? What are the health issues that can arise in your family? And let's plan for that. Let's not pretend you're some statistical average out here.

Mindy Gallina: 40:16

Right.

Morgan Marx: 40:16

Yeah. And we always like to say, you know, we are anything but average and we like to think our clients are anything but average. And so, you know, if we're planning to averages, we're planning to failure. So it's very rare that we ever see when we talk about spousal protection, that we ever see two spouses who score the exact same. But what we do see is that when those protections aren't in place, and the first spouse has a care journey, we see what impact planning or no planning has on the surviving spouse.

Morgan Marx: 41:02

And we can run all of these scenarios to say, if this were to happen, would you be proud of the financial situation that you left your spouse in?

Sondra Ziegler: 41:13

Oh, that's a good one.

Morgan Marx: 41:14

And a lot of times, there is enough for one, but not necessarily for both. And so just by making little tweaks or dedicating certain funds to address this issue, the trajectory and the lifestyle that the surviving spouse will have beyond, you know, the passing of the first loved one is a dramatic difference. And it absolutely, you know, breaks my heart because we we deal with a lot of widows. And sometimes they're scared to death to do anything because they either didn't have a whole lot of input into the planning.

Morgan Marx: 42:11

They maybe don't know where their funds are. And even for, you know, them trying to take care of the loved one while they're still living, they're afraid to spend money for the care. So they take that care on themselves. And then they end up dwindling their health because they are caring for their loved one in a capacity that they aren't trained for. They're not medical professionals.

Morgan Marx: 42:41

They, you know, I can tell you just, you know, even lifting my 100 pound dog. That's a lot. And to do that with a grown person, there's a wear and tear on the body. Whereas if you have a plan in place, you are more likely to call in the help when you need it because you know it's there. It's like having your health insurance.

Morgan Marx: 43:08

You're not going to pay for it out of pocket when you know your health insurance is going to cover it. So you'll go to the doctor, you'll go have the procedures to get, you know, certain things fixed. But when you don't know whether it's covered or not covered, then maybe you won't go. Same thing. The quality of life for the well spouse and the the ill spouse, the one that's going through the care journey, is a night and day difference when you have a plan in place and when you don't, no matter what the plan is.

Sondra Ziegler: 43:47

That makes so much sense to me. I know what you said about the toll it takes on the health of the caregiving spouse is so true. So many times when people come to our office to get their legal planning in place and maybe to get help qualifying for Medicaid if they need help paying for long term care and they need to go that route, or if it's part of a plan combined with other things, by the time they're sitting in our conference room, that caregiving spouse is past, or it could be a child, could be a spouse, could be a child, they are past exhausted. And if they have a plan, I can hear what you're saying. They have a permission structure now to, if they've planned for the cost of long term care, to be able to spend the money and to get the help that they need. Because you're right, it's physically exhausting to take care of another adult human being.

Sondra Ziegler: 44:46

And a lot of them, I can't tell you how many times we do the planning, and this is just another reason for good legal planning that actually understands the long term care space that really understands what can happen on a care journey and has been down this road with a lot of families, it is not uncommon for the spouse, the well spouse, who is the caregiver spouse to pass before the one who has dementia. In particular, we see that many times because a lot of times the one who has dementia, if that's the issue, they're physically healthy. In many cases, it's uncanny to me. A lot of times they're physically healthier than their caregiving spouse, but the toll that caregiving takes when you have a spouse who's having this long journey with dementia and they're at home for a long time and maybe they don't get help with the care for a very long time, the well spouse can pass away first, Happens all the time. And if your estate planning doesn't anticipate that, it can be a big mess.

Sondra Ziegler: 45:54

If they were qualified for benefits under Medicaid, they can suddenly be disqualified by inheriting all the assets from the quote well spouse who passed first. So it can be a big mess, but I can just on the psychological weight of having how they're going to pay for care thought through and, taken care of ahead of time with good solid financial planning, I can only imagine how much that would help families.

Mindy Gallina: 46:28

Actually, Sondra, if I can just touch on that just briefly, just because that was my reality, having my mother-in-law living with us. Now, I'm an able-bodied young ish adult. So I'm still going to take the young words still.

Sondra Ziegler: 46:49

Do it. Yes.

Mindy Gallina: 46:50

But my husband and I were the team, so it wasn't all on me. And in many cases, it's usually on just one spouse. So it was nice. At least my husband and I were able to do it together. But what that meant for us was waking up several times in the middle of the night because she couldn't toilet by herself. She couldn't transfer by herself. So it was getting up and helping her to do that. It was during the day. That was usually on me. Alan would get her up in the morning and get her going.

Mindy Gallina: 47:21

But then during the day, while I'm working, I'm getting the calls to help her use the bathroom or she needs this or she needs that. The amount of physical work that involved was unbelievable. And especially toward the end because it was a lot of dead weight. It was one hundred and thirty five pounds of dead weight that he's in the back and I'm in the front. We're trying to get her up, trying to move her.

Mindy Gallina: 47:43

It was so hard. I can't imagine a spouse trying to do this all on their own. That's a lot to deal with and a lot of trauma to the body as you're trying to help that. And then the trauma to the mind because then you also have the guilt because you can't do all the things that you want to do. You can't do all the things you need to do.

Mindy Gallina: 48:04

It's just there's so much involved in taking care of your loved ones when they're in this kind of situation, but especially when you add the dementia and Alzheimer's on top of that, that is a whole another stress because hopefully they're a kind dementia patient. That's not always the case. So then you're dealing with that and it's just a lot. So if you can plan ahead for these situations where you are able to get assistance financially or medically with your loved ones, you're putting yourself and your loved ones in a much better position. They get better care and you actually, you're doing better as well.

Talia Cyr: 48:49

And giving them the dignity that they probably want and deserve. It's one I know even for my husband's grandfather, he just recently passed away. I remember when we were engaged, I had spent the night over at their house. His grandparents lived with them, and, his grandfather fell in the middle of the night getting out of the shower. He's naked.

Talia Cyr: 49:09

I went down to help his grandmother to get pick him up. This is somebody that he just recently met me. I'm sure he didn't want me to be in that position of helping him see him in that state, but it's it's there's no other option. So I know for so many individuals, just having that assistance, starting off even with home care, having the means to be able to help you support, get the support that you need in those situations, you know it's not all on you. And you're helping your loved ones say, You know what? I'd rather have somebody on the outside come and help me rather than having my family see me in this position.

Sondra Ziegler: 49:43

Yeah, absolutely. Let me ask y'all, this is just for any of you. Do you feel like, is it your experience that it's harder for men to have this conversation? It's harder for them to want to plan for long term care? I mean, I was just going throw it out there because I know what our experience is on the men versus women being willing to talk about this.

Mindy Gallina: 50:10

Yes. Well, I mean, aside from just the client conversations we've had, but just from personal experience, I really think that my father feels that when we start talking about this, we're actually planning his demise instead of planning for a future care event. I'm planning to keep him, like Talia said, planning to keep his dignity. And I think a lot of men don't want to think about the fact that they may not be around. It's not an easy conversation to have, whether you are a spouse, a professional, or a child.

Morgan Marx: 50:44

Yeah, and I think we need to change the conversation to this is another thing that you are doing to protect your loved one. And so even though we don't want to think about ever having ourselves to be in the situation, that we would need that kind of care. But the reality is over seventy percent of people will need some form of care in their lifetime. That means that three out of the four of us on this call are going to need some form of care. How long and to what extent?

Morgan Marx: 51:23

We don't know. I mean, I'd love to be the one that's not, right? But we don't know. And so by planning, just like you're planning for your retirement, you have to plan for these things because otherwise you're just leaving it to chance. And you're going to have a result if a care event happens, but it's gonna be by default.

Morgan Marx: 51:47

And I don't know anybody who is successfully thriving in retirement by getting there by default and doing no planning. So this is no different. And if you if it's hard to have the conversation, and it is, because you have to think about your own health in years that are supposed to be your golden years, you're supposed to be having the fun, And it is hard to think of yourself in that aspect. It is like writing a love letter to your spouse and saying, If something happens to me, you're going to be okay. I've got this covered.

Morgan Marx: 52:30

And that is something that is so special. And I think it is a different way of viewing how we approach extended care and that it's not about you. Yes, it is about maintaining your independence, your dignity, and receiving care in the way that you want to. But a lot of times, it's about how is this going to impact my family and my loved ones that are responsible for making these day to day decisions? And are they going to be responsible for doing the care for me?

Morgan Marx: 53:09

Or by having a plan in place, am I able then to alleviate that burden so that they can focus on enjoying the time that we have left together and just managing the day to day care that I receive.

Sondra Ziegler: 53:27

That is so powerful. And you know, when I think about the question I asked you about men versus women, we had a gentleman one time say, Well, I'd rather you just left me in the woods with a shotgun and a bear, we'll just see what happens than go to a nursing home. And I really do think that's a lot of men, you know, how they think about it. But when you frame it differently for them and help them understand this isn't just about what happens to you because we know losing independence is frightening, and maybe they don't want to think about it. But what you've said is absolutely true.

Sondra Ziegler: 54:09

You know, that's a gift to your spouse. It really is a gift to your spouse to make sure that the planning is done, that there'll be the funds there, there's a plan in place to pay for not only the first spouse's care, but the second spouse's care if they have a need for care, because we know that the last to die is typically the woman. It's not always the case, but if there's going to be a spouse left impoverished by long term care costs, it's very often going to be the wife. And so this is a very, very important issue. It's very important planning that you're doing.

Sondra Ziegler: 54:51

And I'm really looking forward to in our next conversation, we're going to talk about how to go from crisis to clarity and how to build a personalized estate plan. And we're going to get into some of the nuts and bolts and some of the strategies that you guys use every day to help families plan for the cost of long term care and have security. But before we go, I would love to do a little lightning round with y'all. And so tell me what you see as the most overlooked cost or the the most common misconception that you encounter about long term care, and it could be anything.

Morgan Marx: 55:38

I think from my experience is the cost of care is drastically underestimated a lot of times, but then where your care journey begins and how you can use those funds is also misunderstood. And it's no longer a conversation of, you know, long term care insurance is typically what people think of in the way that they cover these kinds of scenarios. And you pay and you pay and you pay and you pay. And if you don't use it, you know, it's something that you never receive benefit from.

Morgan Marx: 56:17

However, there are so many different options now that we consider. And I think that is a common misconception is that when people are planning for an extended care event, that they're not using the right inflation, they're not using the right length of time that somebody may need care, and then they're also not using the right tool for the job sometimes. And so that's why we, you know, tailor and customize those plans because there's so many things and ways that you can solve for this. It's exciting for us to be able to come up with all of these different ways to accomplish the, you know, kind of solve the problem.

Sondra Ziegler: 57:01

So it's a kind of a puzzle with each couple that you meet with. You're not, it's not a one size fits all approach that you're taking. So, okay, what is the what would you say then is the best age for people to begin planning for this?

Morgan Marx: 57:22

Mindy, do you want to tackle that one?

Mindy Gallina: 57:28

Whatever age you are now. I mean, really, comes down to it's better to start planning sooner than later because you never know when something could happen. I mean, you could get in a car accident, have a head injury, and next thing you know, you need help. You could end up with a chronic disease that you weren't expecting and you need help. So, I mean, really, there's never a bad time or a bad age in which to start planning.

Talia Cyr: 57:58

And to throw the football back to you guys and what you do on the estate planning side, even just doing your basic estate planning documents, like your power of attorney, your healthcare power of attorney, your financial power of attorney. That's crucial because I even had an experience with a friend my age. His mom just got dementia. She's in her sixties. And he was like, I don't even have a financial power of attorney for her.

Talia Cyr: 58:24

And now I'm responsible for making all these decisions. So even from somebody in their twenties, starting to think about for yourself, because when you start seeing your loved ones go through it, then you're like, okay, I want to be prepared so I don't have to deal with this down the road.

Mindy Gallina: 58:39

Yeah. And actually we do see a lot of people now, and I'm sure you see it too, Sondra, that are in that sandwich generation. They still have kids at home, but now their parents are needing help. That's like the sweet spot is when you see this starting to happen, take stock. What do I have in place?

Mindy Gallina: 58:58

Do I want my children to go through this? How can I help them so that they're not put in this position that I'm now put in? It's always, always good to start looking at what do we need to do to avoid those mistakes down the road.

Sondra Ziegler: 59:13

Well, I can't wait to dive into our next topic. So if you're listening to this conversation, join us for the next one, From Crisis to Building a Personalized Elder Care Plan, because we're going to walk through what some of the strategies could be for your family, depending on your situation. What are some of the ways that Morgan and her team help families plan for the cost of long term care as part of a holistic estate plan, as part of holistic financial planning. Thank you so much for helping us make a tough topic practical today, ladies. And if you are listening and you found this helpful, share it with a friend because families usually face this for the first time in a crisis.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:00:01

And if you want a roadmap for the second half of life, that is exactly what we focus on at Ziegler Estate Law Group. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks so much, ladies.

Mindy Gallina: 01:00:10

Thanks for having you.

Morgan Marx: 01:00:11

Thank you for having us.

Sondra Ziegler: 01:00:12

A quick reminder that today's conversation is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to be legal advice because to give you legal advice, we need to meet with you and know your specific situation. Thanks again for joining us today for this conversation and remember to make the second half the best half.