N e w s   Y o u   C a n   U s e

C a s t e l l   I n s u r a n c e

February 2012 Newsletter  ~  www.castellinsurance.com

Valentine's day has passed and it is the middle of the month already.  The recent snow seemed to stay around on the parking lots for much longer than usual, even when the temperatures were up in the 50's.  That said, Spring is just around the corner!

We usually slow down a little after the madness we call the Medicare open season, but this year the hectic pace has continued and we are all keeping busy.  Some changes have taken place in our office.  Christy Francis has taken over the front desk position and will be the one who meets you with a warm and friendly greeting.  Nanc Smith has moved to our front office and continues to take excellent care of our customers with both service and detail operations.  Sharon Castell has moved into the back office as Office Manager.  John Coulson is in the same office and is our health care guru!  Thank goodness that John is an agent of change!

The only constant in life is change, and you can either embrace it or be left behind.    At Castell Insurance we embrace change and are always thinking of ways to improve your experience with our office.  This includes searching for the most competetive products, updating our technology and never forgetting that we are, " a local agency providing GREAT local service".

Last month my article in the Sequim Gazette about Long Term Care insurance (LTCi), was no sooner printed than the LTCi landscape changed.

Washington State now has "partnership plans".

The major difference between a partnership plan and a traditional plan, is that it has far more favorable treatment when applying for Medicaid.

You can protect your assets up to the benefit maximums of the purchased policy. For example, if a person had a policy that pays $5,000 per month for 60 months of coverage, the policy benefit pay out would equal $300,000. When the 60 month benefits become exhausted, and if you applied for Medicaid assistance, an additional $300,000 in personal assets would be protected over the usual Medicaid allocations.

This is a valuable additional benefit that helps to protect your assets from the finacial devastation that  can occur due to a Long Term Care confinement.

Partnership plans are only available if the policy meets certain criteria based upon benefits chosen, as well as age of applicant, and are not retroactive for existing policies.

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If you have any questions please call our office at (360) 683-9284 and John or Phil will be happy to explain these benefits to you.

On a lighter note and continuing the tradition of the Castell Insurance holiday card where we include a comic, we wanted to share the above for a chuckle. The battle of weight!

Our shredding event will be on St. Patrick's Day - March 17th, between 11am and 2pm.  Bring all your documents to have them safely and securely destroyed.

LeMay Mobile Shredding place all paper into a container and then into the shredding truck.

You can see everything made into confetti right before your eyes.

We will be offering some light refreshments

so please tell a friend and come on down and 

join in the fun.