Life Right
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Great movie, and an
awesome title. But I would
have done it the other
way round – the Ugly, the
Bad and the Good. OK, it
doesn’t roll off the tongue
quite as well, but it’s a
better way to approach
life – that way you end
on a positive note. But
I digress, this article is
about life right, not about
movies.
Life right
In a nutshell, buying a life right is similar to buying a
home, but with some very important differences.
When you buy a life right, you ‘buy’ a dwelling and the
solution that comes with the dwelling for the duration
of your life – and that of your spouse. You don’t
take title of the dwelling, and the solution includes
the maintenance of the dwelling and surrounding
facilities and, most importantly, access to comprehensive
healthcare based on your needs. So, it is a hybrid product
with the goal of facilitating a good quality of life that is
accessible to more retirees.
The ugly
There’s a lovely scene in the TV Series Doc Martin, where someone asks Martin
about a patient: ‘is she going to die?’ and his response is: ‘yes, but not today.’ And
that’s the ugly fact. You are going to die (but probably not today). And here’s
an even uglier fact. Before you die, you will probably be sick and suffer from
compromised mobility or mental acuity – maybe for a few days, maybe for a few
months, or maybe for a few years.
Oh – and here’s another ugly fact. While we acknowledge that you will die, you
could carry on living for a long, long time – especially if you’ve been eating your
five veggies a day. You may survive your spouse and many of your friends, so
you may get lonely. And if you’re living alone, and not quite as spry as you used
to be, you may become more and more vulnerable to crime. And – possibly most
frightening of all – you may outlive your investments, or your pension may fail to
keep up with inflation and leave you with very little to live on. And it’s in response
to many of these uglies that the life right model was developed.
34 | www.estate-living.co.za