Your Employees Are Facing a Perfect Storm: Caregiving and Long-Term Care Needs
Today’s employers are facing a real-world crisis that is drastically affecting their workforce, as well as the bottom line: employees caring for aging parents and grandparents, while trying to juggle their own lives and work commitments.
The growing caregiving challenge
With more than one in five Americans serving as caregivers and the majority (61%) caring for an adult relative or friend while working, this growing need for senior care is at the forefront of employers’ concerns. In fact, 43% of employers cite senior care benefits as the main benefit they’re prioritizing in 2023. Yet the need for long-term care is apparently not on employees’ minds as much, as 63% of consumers who have received long-term care did not consider the need for it beforehand.
Many employees just aren’t prepared for meeting long-term care needs, nor the skyrocketing costs: the cost of a private nursing room home averages over $9,000 monthly, according to a Genworth Cost of Care Study. Thus, they now face a perfect storm: caring for aging parents AND their younger children, trying to stay focused at work – and at the same time neglecting their own potential long-term care needs.
Rising employee stress, lower productivity
Having to shoulder caregiving responsibilities for an aging loved one is already a cause of significant stress for employees, and taking on the caregiver role without a plan in place can create a major disruption in the caregiver’s life. The medical needs and financial hardships, coupled with the logistical and legal issues that emerge can wreak havoc on an employee’s ability to provide care while remaining fully employed, let alone staying focused at work.
The impact on their mental, financial – and possibly legal – well-being comes at a cost for employers. According to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving, it’s causing:
- Higher employee attrition. Nearly one-third of senior caregiver employees have voluntarily left a job to meet their senior caregiving responsibilities.
- Reduced workplace productivity. Annually, employees lose up to $3 trillion in wages and benefits while employers lose $17-33 billion due to absenteeism and turnover.
- Increased legal liability. There’s been a steep rise in the number of family responsibility discrimination claims in the past ten years, with discrimination against working caregivers to the elderly being the second most common category of claim.
Along those legal lines, according to a recent ARAG stress research study,1 81% of consumers using an attorney without a legal plan report being Very Stressed or Somewhat Stressed when it comes to staying focused at work while dealing with their legal situation. And 59% of general consumers had to take time off work to navigate their legal matter.
Many of today’s employees are having to address the caregiving needs of their aging parents or grandparents who didn’t have a solid plan in place for their changing medical, financial and legal situations. As these employees themselves age, their children – who will soon join the workforce – may face the same caregiving reality for their parents or grandparents. This vicious cycle will continue unless we help employees become better prepared and reduce the caregiving challenges they pass on to their children.
Taking a new look at long-term care benefits
Employers can help break this cycle by rethinking how their benefit offerings support employees’ needs in these situations. For example, stand-alone long-term care (LTC) plans, which have historically provided solid coverage, are largely a benefit from the past primarily because of their costly premiums.
Another variable involves clients with employees in states considering LTC coverage legislation are wanting to help their employees avoid any potential tax that might come from that regulation, as well as potentially provide more value and affordability than the state mandated plans.
As a result, employers are looking at different solutions, including products that combine life insurance with LTC riders, which have become a more prevalent benefit option in the market. For example, an employee might be able to use the accelerated death benefit rider on a life insurance policy that allows them more immediate access to necessary funds to cover any long-term care needs.
How legal fills the caregiving gap – now and for the future
Legal insurance can play a pivotal dual role in providing benefits that will help employees both with immediate caregiving needs for loved ones, as well as helping them plan ahead for their own care needs. In fact, more than 1/3 of ARAG clients have expressed interest in how their legal plan can complement other LTC benefits.
First, with the parents and grandparents services offered through ARAG legal insurance, employees can address the caregiving needs of loved ones. These services can range from getting assistance from a CareScoutTM advocate for help finding a care facility to having a network attorney review existing estate planning documents like a will or power of attorney to ensure the correct beneficiaries and agents are in place.
Second, legal insurance can also help employees plan ahead for their long-term care needs by empowering them to create estate plans. They can use documents like wills and trusts to protect themselves and their loved ones financially and from protracted legal processes, such as probate or Medicare or inheritance disputes.
As the long-term care landscape continues to change, employers look for innovative and attainable ways to assist employees with the immediate needs of caregiving as well as addressing their care needs when they’re older. Including legal insurance in the mix gives them additional tools and resources to deal with the here and now of caregiving as well as planning ahead for the long-term.