Introduction to Genworth, with Larry Nisenson

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following is a podcast from a qualified senior care provider, hurt, on the answers for elders radio show. And welcome everyone to answers for elders radio and we are very glad to be here in this wonderful month of July and moving into August in times of covid nineteen. That is still with us, sadly, but we have some good news. We have some good news. We have a wonderful guest today with us, a gentleman by the name of Larry Nice and send who’s a senior vice president and chief commercial officer of Jen worth, US Life Insurance and including a program called Care Scout, and we’re going to be talking a little bit about how jen worth is truly been the pioneers, in the trailblazers in supporting family caregivers. and Larry, I want to welcome you to answers for elders radio and taking the time with us today. So thanks for being here. Oh my God, thank you for having me, Susan. It’s such a pleasure and I’m really looking forward to our conversation. Well, I am too, because you know, I remember my days of caring for my Moan and you know, one of the things I’ve listened to things that you had recorded before in podcasts and radio segments and I’m so excited to talk to you today because one of the things that you’ve said, which I so totally relate to, is nobody plans to be a caregiver. It’s kind of a role that’s thrusted on you. You know you’ll get that fateful call and a day and all of a sudden it’s like Dingo. You’re put into a role in many cases where you have to care for a parent, like right now, and your life dramatically changes and I know your you’ve kind of been through that process. Is that correct? I sure have, and I’ve been through it twice and I will tell you that I was woefully bill prepared the first time and you think that I’d be better prepared the second time, and truthfully, I really wasn’t, because you get the call when you least expect it. It’s not like you’re leading up to it right. It comes out of nowhere, when when life is sailing along and all of a sudden, boom, you are now a characters. Yeah, you know, it’s interesting there. You say that. I always say if you knew what to prepare for, you would do so, but you really don’t know what’s coming down the next end. And it’s everything. There’s a crossroads, there’s a choice that has to be made and a family caregivers really in a unique situation because in most cases they are unpaid and they are in a situation where in many cases, according to numerous studies, there’s I’ve heard are forty percent job loss in some cases. There’s a lot of situations where family caregivers are trying to hang onto their own lives and take care of their own families and then they take on these enormous many hours to care for an elder loved one. And we’re not even talking about the covid piece, which will probably get into in a later segment. But the challenge is that I’ve seen obviously in the world of caregivers is that they don’t know what to prepare for. It, they’ve never done it and all of a sudden there’s rust in your role that is completely un you know, foreign to them and I’m sure that there’s a lot of our listeners out there that probably can relate to a lot of the things that we’re saying. You know, and and I’m interested in you know your experience and how that you’ve got to this place, because I know jen worth has been amazing for family caregivers and understanding this piece. But Jen worth is the originator of long term care policies. We started writing them forty some odd years ago and saw the need, as many other companies did after us, to provide some way for people to finance their own aging and right and sure insurance policies are a great way to do that. But I have to tell you that it’s still left avoid right and the void is it’s great to sell the policy that says when you need to move into an assisted living or move into a nursing home or make modifications to your house, that there’s a policy that can help pay for it. Right the financial it takes the financial burden away, but it doesn’t take the emotional component away. And Susanne, I have to tell you that that’s that was my experience when I said I was woefully unprepared. My parents, my father had a long term care insurance policy, so we had no financial issues with pain for his care. The challenge was that’s not enough. What do you do? What are the decisions you make right when you’re going to be a parent. There’s that book that everybody gets what to expect when you’re expecting and you’ve got nine months to figure it out right your when you’re a caregiver, you have nine seconds between the time you get the phone call you answer the phone call and you say, well, I don’t even know what the first thing to do is forget what the second, third and fourth are. I don’t know what the first is. And that’s why at Jen worth, I came to January three years ago, and I know we’ll probably talk a little bit more about this later, but one of the first aspects that we started to evaluate over the last several years is, okay, so it’s great can sell longterm care insurance policies, but what do we do for caregivers? How do we provide a service? How do we provide help, education, awareness, how do we provide our expertise of being a forty year insurer in that market to help you, Burton, for caregivers? And that’s really what we’re here to talk about and that’s what jen worth is striving to do in the market place. Well, and I so hear what you’re saying, because it is an emotional call, and not even that. But there’s a family dynamic sometimes where you don’t necessarily realize that if you’re the quote unquote, it in the family to care for a loved one, not only you’re trying to make decisions that is the right thing on behalf of you know your loved one, but a lot of times you’re dealing with family dissension, family conflicts. Everybody has their own ideas. They’re also, you know, want to exert their opinions and in yet it’s a lot of times parents are unprepared and they haven’t designated those individuals in the family of WHO’s going to be the primary caregiver or who’s going to do these things, and so then, amongst a group of siblings, you have to figure it all out on your own. And this is where I’ve seen so many challenges where, you know, we wish in an ideal world, right, that our our parents would make these kind of decisions. Well, look for an so that we know, when and if that time comes, that these things would be handled up front. A lot of times parents don’t want to talk about it, especially from my parents generation, they didn’t talk about it. I think parents are starting to get better, but certainly I’ve seen, I still see it happen. It is, it is one of the hardest unpaid jobs out there. Right. So there are today in the US there’s somewhere between forty and fifteen million family caregivers are unpaid caregivers, right, and for the most Labor about seventy five percent of them. So let’s call it, you know, just for argument Sake, let’s call it thirty plus million caregivers are spouses, older children, you know, people who are early baby boomers or my age, in their mid S. that’s the bulk. That’s about seventy five percent of the carriers. And what you just described is this sort of this dynamic of well, there’s three children or two children and ones the plant caregiver, and that that is hard enough. But I’m going to give you something that’s even harder, which is that twenty five percent of the care unpaid caregivers. Ten million of those unpaid caregivers and are millennials who are caring for parents and grandparents and so takes. So think about how hard that has to be if you’re the child and are of a grandparent and you’re the primary caregiver and now you’re in the middle of this family tug a war over what perhaps your parents want to do for their grandparents and Net and navigating that. It’s it’s such a hard thing. Forget the financial aspect. We know that caregivers themselves spend over tenzero out of their own pocket a year for their care recipients or their loved ones. In addition to that, they’ve got all of this emotional stuff and I will tell you that if they, if your listeners, go to Jen worthcom, G E and WO R T hcom, they can find we have sort of a website that will allow them to downloads and information on how to start conversations right. How do you have the conversation with siddlings over care giving and primary caregivers? What happens when you have to talk to mom or dad about taking the keys away? If they go, if you’re listeners, go to Jen worthcom or care scoutcom, they’ll find a webs they’ll find some literature on our website that will help them have some of those conversations and might be a good way for them to start to think about some of these difficult conversations. Well, Larry, this is such valuable information because had I known then what I know now, my caregiving journey would have been a lot easier on. You know, I always say I was a poster child for anything that could go wrong did go wrong when it came to my parent and you know, I did the best that I knew how to do at the time. But we, like you said, none of us really know and advanced how to deal with things. And you know, I kind of approached my caregiving years in the beginning of like it was just a business situation. So I would just take charge of things, and that’s the last thing in the world you need to do. And you know, it’s how do you stay that daughter, how do you stay that Sun, and rely on experts like you, like you know are wonderful experts that we have, and things like that, to help you navigate through this journey? And I know that a lot of times we tend to, you know, want to fix things, especially if you like you’re like the mail right, you want to fix everything, and of course you’re still in the category of still being, you know, your son, you know, the sun or the daughter, and that doesn’t go over very well because your parent definitely wants to still feel like the Hab a choice about their life and they have their dignity and those things are so important. And so there are tools for you, you know, for our listeners out there, and you know we we’ve talked a lot. You know how we can do best, and I want to go in our next segment a little bit about covid and how that’s affect family caregiving, because I’m certainly sure there’s some new data about that and that Larry is going to share with us. And so Larry, in the meantime, how do people reach to? Is there a number they can call? There is definitely a number that they can call. The easiest way to get in touch with me is to call my office and that number is area code eight hundred and zero. Four, two, eight, one, six two, eight hundred and eighty. Well, that’s wonderful. You can reach Larry Nycenson at the number and also will be right back right after this talking about covid and how it affects caregivers. Answers for elders radio show with Susan Newman. Hopes you found this podcast useful in your journey of navigating senior care. Check out more podcasts like this to help you find qualified senior care experts and areas of financial, legal, health and wellness and the living options. Learn about our radio show, receive our monthly newsletter, receive promotional discounts and meet our experts by clicking on the banner to join the Senior Advocate Network at answers for elders, radiocom. Now there is one place to find the answers for elders.