Doling Out the Estate: It’s a Family Affair..

So… The first wave of baby boomers hit 60 in 2006. With th future of Social Security and Medicare in question, adult children and aging parents are taking stock of how long term care might affect their retirement security.

Rising care costs, vanishing private pension plans and changing family ideologies regarding gift giving and inheritance might have an unexpected effect on how much actual wealth that middle-class Americans can pass on to the next generation. Many are now getting free help from the online LTCi Buyer’s Advocate in planning for asset protection.

Learn how your family thinks about money, as this can help avoid trouble when it comes time to split up an estate, even a modest one. Here’s why.

Inter-generational gifts and [tag]bequests[tag] make up the majority of personal wealth in the USA.

Gifts of $3,000+ account for at least 20% of household wealth; inherited wealth represents about 30%. But these estimates vary widely.

Another study found that transfers from one living person to another and inheritance accounted for two-thirds of the increase in wealth accumulation. That amount could be as high as 80 percent if transfers such as college tuitions and home mortgages are included as gifts. The upshot is that by the year 2050, $41 trillion to $136 trillion will have been passed to family and friends.

Now, in most societies, transfers of property from one generation to the next have been governed by common law and social practice.

Widows and adult children have shared property according to prescribed norms. But today, asset transfers, like so much else in modern life, are not governed by established norms and practices.

Increasingly, property must be divided among half-siblings with a common parent.

Because of longer life spans and greater wealth, estate transfers have become more complicated.

Clearly, some aging parents experience financial pressures. As health care costs continue to rise, and with government plans to reduce or eliminate payments for some medications, the money parents had planned to leave their children might be needed for long term care, instead. Less than 10% of Americans have purchased a private long term care insurance policy, but the need to do so is on the horizon, and you will do well to get free rate quote comparisons from the online LTCi Buyer’s Advocate ASAP.

Technorati Tags: baby boomers, Social Security, Medicare, long term care, retirement, pension, inheritance, wealth, generation, asset protection, family, money, bequests[tag] make up the majority of personal [tag]wealth, estate transfers, financial