Although he has recently been diagnosed as palliative, the health authority does not recommend moving him to a long-term care facility, saying they can give him better quality care where he is, than if he is moved again. He doesn't want to move either, so we continue to cobble together a care program for him, and I travel down at least once a month to make sure he is doing ok.

Dad has a good pension as a retired teacher, but we are eating through his savings to to tune of over $1200/month to cover all his costs. In 2012 have had to buy him expensive medical devices such as a power wheel chair, oxygen concentrator, power lift chair and other bits and pieces to deal with his health issues, all of which came out of his savings to the tune of over $10,000. Yes they are 'deductible' on his taxes, but not against income and have merely reduced his taxes owed to not have to pay more than his pension tax deductions this year, including using his care costs, disability tax credit and many prescriptions.

My eyes are wide open as to the costs of caring for a frail elderly person now, and I am thinking hard of how this will impact my son when I get to that stage. If Dad didn't have some savings, this would have been much harder to do as the income-testing done by the health authority takes the monthly gross pension as his income, and doesn't look at the costs for living that come out of that.

Now – none of the majors will care if you had cancer first and then developed dementia. They DO exclude "psychiatrically linked/caused issues" but if the dementia is non psychiatric, it is covered. Personal assets are IRRELEVANT for LTC – they do count for DI and anyone with a net worth over $4 million may see the amount of DI he can buy reduced – however any net worth he builds after issue – even if it is in the BILLIONS – is irrelevant for any quality DI contract. I sold a LTCI contract to a 52 year old who had a net worth of $50 million – it took me 2 minutes to convince him he did NOT need the insurance – and less than a minute to convince him that it was a good use of his money. Again – no quality insurer even has an "approved list" – if you look at the major players (imagine I cannot name carriers on here) in Canada – all pay if you meet the INDUSTRY STANDARD conditions – no matter where you are receiving the care. By the way – approximately 90% of the care is received at home

I'd also read the details very, very, very carefully for any such policies. Under what conditions can they deny paying claims? What if you have cancer first, and dementia second. Are you covered? What if you have lots of personal assets: do you have to use those first, and the insurance only pays the balance of the cost? Who gets to decide where you have to live? Can the insurance company refuse to pay if you don't use a building on their approved list?

I think I prefer to save and invest like mad to be able to pay for my own costs in the future.