Yes providing:

• The person needing care is over 60
• They actually need care now – have cognitive impairment or need help with daily living activities such as maintaining personal hygiene, cooking, eating or mobility.
• They have to pay for their own care.

It doesn’t matter where you want that care – at home, in a residential home or nursing home, an immediate needs annuity can help pay your fees.  What’s more, should you initially buy an annuity to pay for care at home, the income it provides can be used to pay for any future care home, you or a parent, may need.

Immediate Needs annuities, or as they are sometimes referred to – care fee annuities, can be purchased by either the person needing care (providing they still retain enough capacity to understand the plan), or by family or more typically their appointed Powers of Attorney.

No. Deferred Annuities are specific immediate need annuities which allow you to state that the income should only commence after a specified period normally 1,2 or 3 years. Whilst this can be a good way creating some security again long stays in care and make premiums cheaper, the premium still needs to be paid immediately and in most cases no refund will be given if the person dies before benefits commence. Read more about Deferred Annuities.

Yes – if you opt for it to increase. This is called escalation and will add a small extra amount to premiums.

Escalating Immediate need annuities can be set up to allow for either set annual increases of between 1-10% p.a. or by an inflationary measure normally RPI. No matter when in the year you chose to buy an annuity, we can arrange for first annual escalation to coincide with when your care provider increases their fees, making budgeting so much easier.

Escalation will increase premiums, but by how much, will depend on; life expectancies, the rate of escalation you select and also the annual benefit the annuity is to provide. To help you appreciate how much extra it would cost, we will always obtain immediate need annuity quotes on both non-escalating (level) and whatever escalating basis you request.