As we age, we face new risks. These risks could affect how financially secure you are, whether you have autonomy over your medical decisions, and what kind of legacy you are able to leave behind for loved ones. Fortunately, there are ways to mitigate or minimize some of the biggest risks you will end up facing — but you need to act quickly and put a plan in place before you find yourself in a bad situation.
This guide will explain two of the biggest risks seniors end up coping with and also what you can do to reduce the chances that your future and your legacy will be derailed if you find yourself facing them. The Northern California Center for Estate Planning and Elder Law can help you to prepare for these potential outcomes so give us a call at (916) 437-3500 to schedule an appointment to talk with a Sacramento estate planning lawyer who can help you.
1. An incapacitating illness or injury
One of the biggest risks that you could face as you age is that you will become incapacitated by an illness or by a serious injury. There are many potential ways this could happen to you, ranging from a fall that causes brain injury to a stroke to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, the risk of many of these serious incapacitating problems increases as you get older.
If you become physically or mentally incapacitated, this can cause a host of complex issues for your loved ones to deal with. Someone will need to make medical decisions on your behalf, including deciding what kinds of care to accept or deny. With the many medical advances out there, your life can often be prolonged for a long time — but not necessarily in a state that you would want to keep living in. Your family could be forced to make tough choices about whether to withhold or deny lifesaving or life-extending care in difficult situations and they may not always agree on the best course of action or know what your preferences would have been.
If you are incapacitated, you also cannot manage your own assets. Someone is going to have to take care of managing your investments, taking care of your property, and paying your bills. The court may have to appoint a guardian to do that, and the person who is chosen to fulfill this role may not have the knowledge about exactly how to take care of your assets — especially in complex situations such as when you own and run your own business.
You need to be prepared for your potential incapacity by making sure there are plans in place for a trusted person to manage your assets and make medical decisions for you. You’ll also want to express your preferences in advance and make your wishes known regarding what kinds of medical interventions you want under what specific circumstances.
There are tools you can use to do that, including an advance health care directive to specify your preferences with regards to healthcare issues and giving someone you trust durable power of attorney to manage your assets, make medical decisions, or both. However, you must use these tools and put them into place before the time when you become incapacitated because otherwise it will be too late. Making an estate plan that addresses these issues is the best way to be prepared for incapacity.
2. A need for long-term care
There’s also another thing you need to be prepare for as you get older: the possibility that you are going to need some type of long-term care. If you become unable to take care of yourself independently, you’ll probably either need to move into a nursing home or have someone come to your home to tend to your needs. When you need help simply because you can’t care for yourself, the care you need is called custodial care.
Medicare and most private health insurance seniors have will not provide any coverage at all for long-term care. You’ll be on-your-own to pay for it. This can be a very substantial financial burden given that the annual cost can be over $120,000 per year in California. This isn’t something you want to pay the cheapest price either for, since you obviously want good quality care.
You can plan for the possibility you will end up requiring nursing home or home care by buying long-term care insurance if you can find a good policy you can afford. Many people can’t. You can also work with an estate planning lawyer to make a Medicaid plan to qualify for Medicaid coverage without first spending down all of your assets. Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, covers nursing home care but is for people with limited financial resources. If you make a Medicaid plan, you can make sure your money and property don’t prevent you from qualifying so you can get the coverage you need while still protecting the inheritance you hope to leave behind.
You should contact the Northern California Center for Estate Planning and Elder Law at (916) 437-3500 today to schedule an appointment to speak with a Sacramento estate planning lawyer about how you can prepare for these potential risks that only increase as you get older. An experienced and qualifieed attorney can help you to use tools such as trusts and advance directives to control your future medical autonomy and to protect all that you have worked so hard for over your lifetime so you don’t lose everything if you must get nursing home care.
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