This is a long post on a relatively new factor in retirement concerns, namely long-term care planning and insurance. If you or your partner become infirm and require more treatment and care than can be given by a home health aide, you may need to be in a long-term care facility. That is costly. Very costly. Insurances and Social Security are inadequate and savings can disappear rapidly.
I don't know what long-term health care insurance costs, but I suspect it is costly.
Another type of "insurance" is a Continuing Care Community, that is a facility where you and your spouse may live independently, but should either of you require nursing home care, it is provided, usually there, perhaps in another part of the facility or occasionally in a different facility under the same management. Around Minneapolis, the Presbyterians run a number of such facilities. We live in one managed by a company with about 180 continuing care places around the country.
In a facility like this, you "buy in" - a somewhat costly prospect - and pay a monthly fee that some might consider it "up there" (I did), but it includes food services, activities, and a some other things. And you are free of "house costs," appliance repair, home insurance, the need for a new roof and related matters. When our dishwasher or washing machine need replacement or repair it is done, and I do not pay for it.
In deciding on such a facility, you analyze what you are currently paying for mortgage, food, insurance, property taxes, transportation, lawn care, home maintenance, etc., and consider your continuing ability to do lawn care, home maintenance, and whether your home will need "senior up-dating" (stair elevators, etc.) to be safe. Then you make your decision. You also consider how long you are likely to live and the ability of the surviving spouse to live comfortably. That, of course, is a complex and not totally predictable consideration.
In a continuing care place like where I live should either of us need nursing care, an attached facility provides it. The one needing care gets it there, and the one not needing care remains in the independent living facility. The plus is that the need for nursing care does not increase our monthly fee. And that fee drops, should one partner die.
Furthermore, should I need hospital-type care following my knee replacement (hopefully in early December), I get it in our facility, which also has a full physical therapy operation available to me.
Most people use the money gained from selling a house for the initial costs. And Beloved Spouse and I found it felt "comfortable" to know we had a reasonably healthy savings for a "cushion" and some extras like travel or if we need a new car.
In some arrangements with continuing care facilities, your heirs will receive as an inheritance a portion - maybe 10 percent or even 50 percent - of your "buy in costs." This, of course, increases your monthly fee and perhaps you have determined that your children can care for themselves and do not need an "inheritance."
I am content with how this arrangement frees us from the concern of paying long-term care costs and struggling with a house and related matters should we become infirm or incapacitated.
And any of us who are pastors have seen the very elderly who struggle with living in the the old family homestead or must buy lodging and care in a nursing home where the chief benefit is low cost.
