By Jamie Marshall

The Alzheimer’s Association has released its annual report of facts and figures about the disease, reporting that 5.5 million Americans suffer from the disease, 200,000 of whom are below age 65.

Most of those with Alzheimer’s, 82 percent, are 75 or older, with more of these between 75 and 84 than those 85 and older. This contrasts with a similar article I wrote six years ago, when most people with Alzheimer's were 85 and over. I assume this has to do with changing demographics: there are relatively few Americans in the older cohort because they were born during the baby bust of the Depression -- 85 years ago was 1932. This trend will continue for another decade and a half, and then the "older old" population will skyrocket as the oldest Baby Boomers start reaching the 85 year old threshold beginning in 2031.

By Harry S. Margolis

By Harry S. Margolis

But now the Massachusetts Appeals Court has said that while a beneficiary may have no malpractice claim in the absence of an attorney-client relationship, he can sue as the intended third-party beneficiary of the contract between the attorney and the decedent to create an estate plan.

By Harry S. Margolis

Since we first published this post in 2012, our clients have had both good and bad experiences with accessing their long-term care insurance. In general, the more solid the company, the better the experience. Fortunately, many of the less solid companies have left the business, but older policies with them still exist and they continue to put up roadblocks to getting coverage, often claiming to have lost paperwork that was sent to them.

We have found that tenacity and keeping good records of every contact with these companies ultimately results in coverage. Sometimes a letter from an attorney is also necessary. Of course, all of this is a terrible burden to place on families already overstretched doing their best to care for an ailing family member.

Here's the post:

A recent article on the CBS News website, "Some long-term healthcare policies not paying up," highlights the difficulties many owners of Bankers Life long-term care insurance policies are having trouble collecting.  As the article reports, and as some of our clients have experienced, Bankers Life typically gives policyholders a major run around when they make claims, often claiming not to have received documentation that has been sent in.