With long-term care becoming more and more prevalent in our lives, producers are being asked more frequently about this issue by their clients and prospects. The questions can range in part from tax deductibility or favorable tax treatment to which carrier or kind of long-term care planning instrument to use, as well as how to effectively get your arms around all of the moving parts of the contracts themselves. Couple this with the individual state partnership issue, and there can be a lot of questions both answered and unanswered on any number of topics. Additionally, clients and prospects in some states are getting educated via the "Own Your Future" campaigns.

Ultimately, you may have to decide if you should learn all of the ins and outs of long-term care planning, or if you should partner with a long-term care planning specialist. If you are going to become the expert on this the first step you will need to consider is the initial training that you should have. The CLTC designation has trained roughly 16,000 students and may be a good place for you to receive the background necessary to proceed into long-term care. You may also want to consider how exactly you will approach your clients and prospects about long-term care education and the issues associated with successful long-term care planning.