annuities for care home fees

graham2512

mum suffers from dementia at present she is with a lot of help still living alone in her own home it want be long before she will need to go into fulltime residential care.As mum owns her property she will be self funding social services will contribute for the first 12 weeks After this she will recive attendance allowance and state pension the rest will come from the sale of her house An interest free loan is available untill a sale can be finalized
It is possible to buy an innutie to cover the fees plus any increases Mums 88 and in good health Can anyone offer any advice? pitfulls to avoid or good finance companys We have found a very nice care home and Ido have PA

sleepless_saver

From my experience I'd say:

Make sure you or your broker get quotes from all the providers (there aren't many of them) as they can vary a lot, probably especially for someone who has dementia but is physically OK at the moment.

Don't rush into anything. It can be a huge financial commitment

Carefully compare the short, medium and long term costs of buying an annuity to make up the shortfall with using interest from the proceeds of the sale of the house plus drawing on capital from sale of house to make up the shortfall. Sadly it comes down to a guess on how long someone might live.

In our case my MIL died unexpectedly while we were still looking at the options so we never took it up, but the quotes we had ranged from £35k to £60k (and she was over 80 and in poor physical health).

EdInvestor

Some info and figures here

The advantage of the immediate needs annuities is that you know the cost is covered at the outset and the money is paid tax free if it goes directly to the care home.