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Medicaid won't pay for his care unless we surrender 2 life insurance policies of which ownership was assigned to us almost 19 years ago.
Is this legal? Are we really required to cash them out?

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I have found out in NC that anything that is of cash value has to be used before Medicaid can be considered. My mother has a small life insurance policy to cover funeral expenses. We were advised to make the funeral home the beneficiary of the policy for a pre-burial plan. Good Luck!
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I just applied for Medicaid for my dad in CT and yes, we had to cash out his life insurance policy and spend the money as part of the 'spend down'. I felt so bad doing it, but we have to get him on Medicaid for the nursing home.
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My dad did this when my mom needed to become Medicaid eligible. He was able to use the money to become completely debt free and it then started Medicaid eligibility for her
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Do you mean ownership or beneficary? If the policy holder is Dad and ur benefiary and there is a cash value, yes it has to be cashed in. If you were made the policy holder 19 yrs ago that is not within the five year look back so the policy is yours. Someone said that if the policy is held by a former employer, it can't be counted. I have read on this forum that NHs have given family the wrong info when helping with Medicaid.

If you find you need to cash the policies in, you can use the money to prepay for the funeral. This includes the flowers and luncheon. If something doesn't sound right call Medicaid.
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We just had to cash in several of my Mom’s policies in preparation for Medicaid. We used the proceeds to set up a prepaid funeral. I’m actually glad we had to do that, as now we don’t have to worry about planning the funeral later and there will be no money for anyone to fight over.
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We just had to cash in several of my Mom’s policies in preparation for Medicaid. We used the proceeds to set up a prepaid funeral. I’m actually glad we had to do that, as now we don’t have to worry about planning the funeral later and there will be no money for anyone to fight over.
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The Nursing Home is not Medicaid and will have nothing to do with whether your father will be approved for Medicaid. If ownership of the policies were transferred to you nineteen years ago, the transfer is well past the five-year look-back period. A skeptical person may wonder whether the NH is telling you this to get you to convert an exempt asset (the cash value of the policies) into a non-exempt asset (cash) so that the NH would get the higher daily rate for private pay until the cash is spent down.
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Even if ownership was assigned to you many years ago, if premiums were continued to be paid, then it will likely fall under the Medicaid rules.
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