Understanding sandwich generation challenges from experience

It would be wonderful if all scenarios involving caring for family members went smoothly. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Michael G. Herman, ChFC, LUTCF, knows this from personal experience. When his mom had a stroke, the 21-year MDRT member from Lakewood, Colorado, and his brother took care of her.

“It’s not an easy task. I had my own kids, my brother had his family, my dad was gone, and unfortunately my mom and dad refused to do any planning for long-term care,” Herman said. “We ended up spending about $200,000 of mom’s money to pay for nursing home care before she qualified for Medicaid. And now we’re trying to protect her house.

“I’m in the business of these protections, and she didn’t have them.”

An added challenge involved bringing nursing care into Herman’s mom’s house because she didn’t want her children to have to care for her in the bathroom. “You never think about those needs,” Herman said. “It cost more to care for her in her house, and taking her out of the home where she lived for 45 years and putting her in a nursing home was the most difficult decision we ever had to make.”

He frequently shares these challenges with clients to illustrate the financial and emotional burden of not planning for these needs, noting that he has seen $1.5 million in assets taken from his mom’s family (she has four sisters in the same facility where she lives, not including another who just passed away).

Read more tips about working with sandwich generation clients in the July/August cover story of Round the Table.

Written by Matt Pais, MDRT Content Specialist