Dilnot: Working group needed to help develop care plans
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The Government should set up a working group to consider how to develop products to fund care needs such as long-term care, says the Dilnot commission.
The commission recomm-ends that the working group should be made up of Government, local government, the financial services industry, the FSA and other interested voluntary sector organisations and consider products that may emerge from the Dilnot report.
Possible care products inc-lude those linked to pensions such as disability-linked annuities, where income from an ann-uity is reduced initially but then increased at the point of need.
The commission recommends that the Government should clarify the tax treatment of disability-linked annuities to state that they are permissible under current pension tax rules.
Other possible products in-clude those linked to housing assets such as equity release and insurance-linked products such as care options added to critical-illness policies or life cover.
Commission chair Andrew Dilnot says: “It will be natural to think about how assets might be used more flexibly to pay for care.”
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Readers' comments (2)
Sean | 7 Jul 2011 8:33 am
Products are already out there unless you are looking for some form of guaranteed income when required:
Pensions; ISA's, OEICS, Life Assurance Bonds (yes currently ignored for means testing) Deposit Accounts etc.
Do we really need a working group to decide what products providers should produce? Look at the roaring success of stakeholder products (how many life offices have 'consilidated' after that disaster?).
Carehome fees planning is our domain but once again we have 'committees' who want to cut out the advice side of life.
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Anonymous | 7 Jul 2011 2:59 pm
I think government want to have a really good read of this report first and decide is it as good as it has been sold to them, the public and the media. Rather than solving the problems moving forward it appears to be more complex and probably misleading than the current system. Take a look at the proposal for the raised capital limit to £100,000. If the current tariff income system remains as proposed a Local Authority funded resident would be contributing an extra £343 week on top of their income to the LA for their care (and may have to top-up as well). Ill thought through to say the least!!! Before government start spending money on protecting peoples inheritance they need to pay the right amount for a good quality of care and NOT underfund the private care industry else they will lose it. If they are happy to properly fund care and protect more money for beneficiaries great, but I guess the costs will be horrendous in the future. Implementing the Dilnot report in its entirity will most likely lead to confusion, higher costs and more pressure on the care providers. Not exactly a good idea.
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