No, attorneys, this article is not referencing your retirement. I recently read a story, albeit from 2015, about a woman named Mama Lee Wachtstetter who lived on a cruise ship.[1] I am not exaggerating. She sold her five-bedroom house,[2] she did not rent an apartment; she truly lived full time on a cruise ship. That being said, it cost her approximately $164,000 per year for her single-occupancy room.[3] That sounds expensive, but even an “all-inclusive” assisted living facility would not have provided the same quality of goods and services. Mama Lee enjoyed daily lunch and dinner with beverages, tips, daily ballroom dancing, cocktail parties, movies, lectures, other shows and entertainment and most uniquely: the opportunity to travel and meet people from all over the world.[4]
Mama Lee lived on the cruise ship for nine years, as of 2018.[5] She said the one thing she missed was her family, but she stayed in touch with them via laptop and telephone, and she was able to see them about five times per year when she docked in Miami.[6] She had always enjoyed cruising with her husband, and they did 89 cruises before he passed away in 1997.[7] She has since done almost 100 more, including 15 world cruises![8] She said it got to the point where she did not even get off the ship at certain ports because she had already seen them so many times, and it was nice to enjoy the peace and quiet on the ship.[9]
If you care to hear more about Mama Lee and all of her adventures, she wrote a book called “I May Be Homeless But You Should See My Yacht.” I have not read it myself, but it is on my list. I cannot wait to recommend it to my cruise-loving clients.
After reading Mama Lee’s story, I was interested to see if this was truly a viable alternative to assisted living. I stumbled upon a Morningstar Financial article which listed 75 must-know statistics regarding senior care. The numbers were mostly from 2015-2017, and most were national numbers, but I think it was a fair reflection nonetheless. Here are some numbers and figures I found notable (and worth passing on to some of your hesitant-to-engage clients):
- The percentage of people turning age sixty-five (65) who will need some type of long-term care services during their lifetime is 52%.[10] Of that 52%, the average number of years a woman will need long-term care is 2.5 years, while the average time a man will need long-term care is 1.5 years.[11]
- The national median cost for a semi-private nursing home room, is $85,775 in 2017 (raise that to $97,455 for a private room).[12] That means, the average married couple will spend somewhere around $343,099 if they have to private pay for skilled nursing care, should they need it.
- On the more extreme end, the lowest average annual nursing-home cost for a private room is in Monroe, Louisiana ($51,100) while the highest cost is for a private room in Manhattan, New York ($215,770) (both figures as of 2017).[13]
- If you are concerned about the trend toward long-term care expenditures: They totaled $30 billion in the U.S. in 2000, compared with $225 billion in the U.S. in 2015 (750% increase in 15 years).[14]
- For those clients who say “my kids will take care of me”: The estimated dollar value of long-term care provided by unpaid caregivers as of 2013 was $470 billion dollars.[15] The average percentage of caregivers for people age 50 or older who said they were experiencing high levels of financial strain was 36%.[16]
- There are fewer than fifteen (15) insurers offering standalone long-term care policies as of 2014,[17] so if your client did not jump on that bandwagon early, it’s getting more difficult to find a cheap policy. However, 99% of the new long-term care policies cover both nursing home and in-home care.[18] Sadly, the percentage of applicants aged 70-79 denied long-term care insurance due to health issues is 44.8%.[19]
The next time you have a client who says, “I am never going into a nursing home,” feel free to share some of these numbers and see if they still want to take the chance, or, you can recommend they live on a cruise ship of their choosing!
Brittney M. Shearin, Esq.
[1] Liberman, Si, Woman Pays $164k Per Year to Live on Luxury Cruise Ship, Jan. 2015 USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2015/01/19/woman-pays-164k-per-year-to-live-on-luxury-cruise-ship/22030011/
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Kickham, Debbi, How to Retire on a Luxury Cruise Ship, April 2018 Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/debbikickham/2018/04/23/how-to-retire-on-a-luxury-cruise-ship/#32ef333d13f5
[6] Liberman, supra.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Benz, Christine, 75 Must-Know Statistics About Long-Term Care: 2018 Edition, August 2018 Morningstar Financial, https://www.morningstar.com/articles/879494/75-mustknow-statistics-about-longterm-care-2018-ed.html
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
