"I believe I have enough to pay for my care, should I need it."

You may be right, but you need to consider what your income and assets have been allocated for. They are all part of a retirement portfolio that has been allocated to support your lifestyle and keep financial commitments to your family and community. Those commitments may include:

• Paying educational costs for grandchildren.
• Helping a child or children who may not have made the best decisions in life.
• Providing for a disabled child.
• Continuing to make financial contributions to a religious community or alma mater.

"But if I need care I won't be able to do what I wanted to anyway. I can use the money I save to pay for it."

It's not just your lifestyle; it's your family's lifestyle. The promise is to take care of those you love. That includes continuing to meet your financial obligations. Think for a moment about what might happen if income, and eventually assets, have to be reallocated to pay for care.

"I have plenty of income. My advisor told me I could easily support my lifestyle and pay for care."

Some of my best clients are more than capable of self-insuring. Let me share their thinking with you:

• Wealthy people never assess risk, only consequences. No one believes they will need care, so they disregard risk as a factor in purchasing long-term care insurance
• The majority of those who purchase long-term care insurance have had a prior experience and are, therefore, painfully aware of the severe consequences that providing care can have on  a family and its finances.
• Even though they deeply believe they will not get Alzheimer's, a stroke, or other illnesses, they understand that, without long-term care insurance, they will likely have no plan for care, and it will be very expensive.