My mother aged 86 now needs nursing care, how much does a care fees annuity cost?

I am afraid that there is no simple answer to this. Because your mother’s needs are individual to her, so to will be the premium. Each premium for each client is individually calculated and will depend on the following factors as well as sex and age;- the amount of benefit required; medical history and what options you require – escalation and or capital protection.

Care Fees Annuity.co.uk believe deciding how to fund anyone’s care is too important a decision to be made based on guesses, so are happy to obtain proper accurate medically underwritten quotes from all providers FREE OF CHARGE and without obligation. To obtain your quotes complete our online quote request and we will send you a medical form for completion and returning to us.

My father requires care but insists on receiving care at home. Can a care fees annuity be used to pay for his care received at home?

Yes. A Care Fees or Immediate Needs Annuity is not only for care in a care home but can be arranged to pay for care at home as well. Providing it is paid to a registered care agency the benefits will also be paid tax free just as it would if you were paying for his care in a care home. Not only this but as such annuities are portable should he subsequently need to move into a care home it will move with him and all you need to do is to notify the annuity provider of the new care homes details and they will simply pay the benefits to them instead. Obviously the benefits may no longer be sufficient, depending on how much was taken out initially, but another top up annuity could be arranged.

Should you like to obtain FREE NO OBLIGATION quotes on all annuities, please complete our online quote request form and we will supply you with a medical form which will need completing and returning to us for the providers to obtain full medical details of your father and provide their quotes.

If I take out a care fees annuity for my father, will the income provided remain the same for the rest his life?

Whilst the income provided will continue for the rest of your fathers life, however long he lives, whether it remains the same or not will depend on whether you request the income to escalate or not? If you request an escalating annuity the benefits will increase each year by the rate selected, which can be either a fixed rate per annum 0-8.5% p.a or by RPI . Obviously the cost of an annuity which escalates will be more expensive but isn’t necessarily much more expensive.

To find out how much more expensive , complete our online quote request form and we will obtain for you all quotes, both escalating and level annuities, as well as with or without capital protection from all annuity providers FREE OF CHARGE and without obligation. This way you will receive a comparison showing all quotes to consider.

If I take out a care fees annuity, can the annuity provider ever ask for more premium?

Once you have received an accepted a medically underwritten quote, once set up the provider can never request a further premium for continuing to provide the same benefits. Obviously should you subsequently need to increase the income provided, for example if a move up to more expensive nursing care is required, then you may need to set up a new top up annuity, but they can not increase the premium on the original policy no matter how long care is required for. This is one of the advantages of an annuity – it caps the cost of care and continues indefinitely.

To read more about the benefits of an annuity visit annuities explained.

Both my mother and father are moving into a care home together. Can they obtain a joint annuity?

No, there is no such joint care fee annuities, each of your parents would need to take out a separate one. The reason for this is that you need the income to continue for which ever parent outlives the other and that pricing of an annuity is based on individual ages, sex and health which will be different for each.

When considering obtaining separate annuity quotes, one point you need to consider is whether your parents are sharing one room or two separate rooms and if a joint one what will happen on first death? This is important as you will need to ensure that the income provided by each annuity would be sufficient to continue to meet the room cost the care home would continue to charge when just one of your parents remain living in the care home. The cost for single occupancy can of course be considerably more expensive than half of any joint room cost.

I am worried that if I pay a single lump sum, should the provider go out of business I would lose everything. How safe are care fee annuities?

Currently the only providers of such annuities, Aviva and Just, are well established providers of such annuities. However for your added reassurance should anything happen to the provider, you are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme which will either arrange for another provider to continue paying the benefits, or if this is impossible, would provide compensation of 100% of your plan benefits.

If I take out an annuity for my mother but her health improves, can I surrender the plan?

No. Once you have paid the premium, apart from in any statutory cooling off period (30 days), you will not be able to surrender the plan and receive any money back. However, if your mother’s health does improves sufficiently to allow her to once again live independently, the payments can continue to be paid, but if no longer required to be paid to any registered care provider and paid instead to your mother’s bank account, then the income will then start to be taxed.

I have received your medical form which asks for the benefit required. Do I request quotes to cover the full cost of care or a smaller amount?

The is a matter of choice and will in part depend on a variety of circumstances such as how long you feel the person needing care will live, whether any pensions will continue to rise at the same rate as care fees, and how much other money might remain to meet future top ups required if you do not cover the full cost now.

However, to keep the purchase cost down and to avoid losing too much in the event of early death, you might want to consider requesting quotes just for the shortfall (difference) between the cost of care and ongoing income from all sources such as pensions and any state benefits such as Attendance Allowance or Funded Nursing Care.

The reason to request just this shortfall is that if you did alternatively request quotes for the full amount, on the basis that at least this way the pension income and any state benefits could then be received to help recover some of the cost of purchasing the annuity, should the person needing care die early the mount received back in the time from pensions and benefits wouldn’t compensate for the increased cost of purchasing the lower premium if you had just elected to cover the shortfall.

We would of course be happy to obtain quotes on both basis for you free of charge and without obligation , simply complete our online quote request form.

I have heard that a Deferred Care Fees Annuity are cheaper. What are Deferred Care Fee Annuities?

A Deferred Care Fees Annuity is a variety of care fees annuity where but instead of benefits commencing immediately, you ask for benefits to commence only after a deferred period normally 12, 24 or 36 months to get a cheaper premium.

The premium is still paid at outset, and you will need to pay the care fees until the plan commences.

You can read more about them here.

If you would like a FREE no obligation quote on a deferred annuity as well as one where benefits commence immediately, complete our quote request form today and we will send you a medical form for completing and return to us.