Every credentialed or licensed member of the financial services community is bound in some way to either Know Your Client rules, Reg BI (Best Interest), or a Fiduciary standard. Yet, it’s not hyperbole to say that none of those can be claimed or met without a solvable, known, Long-Term Care (LTC) plan.  Failure to do so is more than an omission.  Taken to its logical, ethical, and legal conclusions, this pattern meets the definition of systemic fraud by omission, a near mathematical certainty, when there is a:

1.  Failure to model a known, material, foreseeable risk

2.  Reliance on professional authority and consumer trust

3.  Decades of industry knowledge about LTC probability and cost

4.  No disclosure of why the risk is being ignored or externalized

In a previous piece, a simple question is asked: What if EVERYONE Took Long-Term Care Seriously?   Now we can look at the functional reality, prove the failure, and encourage a serious industry to look at how far that extends, going down the above list with equivocation. 

No American would send the IRS a check for the “average” tax payment. 

No consumer would accept an “average” retirement plan.

Implementing an “average” estate plan is ridiculous on its face.

And no client uses an “average” asset allocation; it doesn't exist. 

Why?  Because the average of one is one……One client, one plan, one family, one estate, one tax return, and the advisory failure to place LTC in that context fails #1.  And since averages are not plans — more an abdication of responsibility – tripping of #1 turns #2 into a virtual face plant.

This is where #3 is crossed off, because it doesn’t require a congressional investigation to know that biology has pushed longevity well into the seventies or eighties, with one of the fastest growing demographics, by % growth, are those over age 100.  Combine longevity, with the exclusion of LTC in Medicare (since 1965), the ACA (post 2010), and the explosion of cognitive decline with aging, the probability and cost are absolutes.

The most shocking and final hurdle is #4, and the hyper-compliance reality of 2025.  There is near-zero adoption of disclosure by any firm/institution explaining how or why they choose to ignore healthcare or LTC as a risk, or the fact that near-zero memorialize the consumer rejection of risk mitigation strategies when recommended.

The totality here is that 75 million Americans are about to expose all of this, and for those in the advisory community, including the RIA, CFP, attorney, accountant, Medicare agent, etc., this should be like watching team coverage on the Weather Channel as a Category 5 hurricane approaches the coast.  Instead, most are painting themself into a professional corner, and rather than preparing or evacuating, they ignore the risk is both material and quantifiable, they insist their home is solid and can withstand the storm.  Or they pretend that the storm will pass by or move in another direction.  

When all of this becomes a historical fact, there will be no answers for clients—and that will not be good enough, because the line between advisory failure and fraud will no longer be blurry.