Funding for your child's futute.

One common question that often comes to mind when beginning the difficult task of developing a life plan for a special needs child is “How much money do we need to provide for our child’s future?” The complete answer depends on too many factors to discuss here, however, two key elements are:

þ Mortality- how long might your child live based on their unique situation.

þ Morbidity- what extraordinary costs could they incur due to their physical or developmental impairment.

Many inexperienced planners only focus on mortality as the baseline for the financial assessment. Too often, they compound that error by ignoring the dynamic nature of cost of living increases which affect special needs specific expenses. Taken together, this can greatly undervalue the true funding requirements.
Morbidity deals with deviation. In this case, it asks, “What changes will take place in the care needs of my child as they progress down their mortality line?” Seen as a chart it would look like this:


The triangle formed by the deviation can ad a significant sum to the funding amount. Disregard it at your, and your child’s peril!