Why Aged Care advice is complex and what you need to know

I have always been saying, the older we are, the more complexity is being introduced to us.

Setting yourself up for the most beneficial retirement is complex and involves many issues that need to be analysed and planned for. The same applies to planning for the Age Pension if you are lucky to be eligible. If you are only receiving part Age Pension, my recommendation is to contact our office to find out why and if there is any strategy available to you to improve your Age Pension payments. The more you can receive from the Age Pension, the lower your personal contribution, hence your money will last longer.

But wait until you need to deal with Aged Care, now we are talking real complex issues. Not asking for the advice in my view is a mistake and setting yourself up for the highest fees that Centrelink will calculate for you.

So today I would like to go over what is actually included in the discussion and advice that you should receive from the financial planner, if you are dealing with Aged Care either for yourself, your partner or your parent.

Aged Care system in Australia is really complex and if you don’t do your research or ask for the advice, you might miss out on many benefits or alternatively you might be overpaying for the Aged Care system.

What’s more, the rules keep changing. You can find out about the recent reform from Shaun’s latest video “Residential Aged Care reforms from November 2025”

The second video that I would like for you to watch is “The biggest Aged Care Mistakes to avoid”

The easiest way to show you how much discussion you really need to have with a financial planner before any Aged Care decision can be made, is with the assistance of this big wheel:

Step 1 – PLACEMENT

Before any advice can be provided, first a financial planner needs to know if we are discussing Home Care or Residential Facility. In both cases, you would require financial advice to know how to deal with various assets, placement fees, and your money.

At this point in time, it is also essential to decide if you require a placement specialist to assist you or you will do the leg work yourself.

Step 2 – STRATEGY

This is most likely the most complex advice you will find, depending on the situation, we need to discuss the following:

• The family home – very often I am going over scenarios of selling the home, keeping home or renting home with each scenario giving you a completely different cost of care outcomes and different cashflow. This is the only way how you would be able to decide on the best option in relation to the family home and how to deal with ongoing cashflow and meeting ongoing fees.
• Social Security – Before any decision is made, you need to be aware of what is the impact of moving to the Aged Care or cost of home care? What happens to your government benefits? Will the move to Aged Care for example impact your Age Pension? Could the Age Pension be reduced or lost altogether?
• Cost of Care – you should know the costs before you or your loved one moves to Aged Care facility. Have those costs been minimised with the right strategy?
• Cash flow – this is an essential part of Aged Care planning. Is the income high enough to cover those high Aged Care fees? Where is the income coming from?
• Estate Planning – have you prepared your estate planning wishes? Will your beneficiaries receive any inheritance, or will it all be eaten up with Aged Care fees? Have you looked at maximising your Estate value for the benefit of your beneficiaries?
• Tax – let’s not forget about the inevitable, have you looked how tax could be minimised? Do you even know what level of tax your beneficiaries would need to pay?

Step 3 – INVESTMENT SOLUTIONS

As you can see, the actual investments and products come as the very last step. It does not mean that this is not an important aspect of your Aged Care planning, it just means that you need to get your strategy right before you even start looking at investments.

Should you keep money in just a simple term deposit, or should you be looking into Aged Care specific investing, or is there any other way?

There is no one solution that fits us all, each situation is different and has to meet different needs and requirements.

This is why a professional Aged Care advice is essential, helpful and beneficial not only for the person entering Aged Care facility or utilising home care packages, but also for a spouse, the children that might be caring for a parent, or for beneficiaries.

By: Katherine Isbrandt CFP®
Money Strategist & Retirement Planner
Principal of About Retirement