Three years ago, when Bob and Sandy Curtis moved into an upscale continuing care retirement community in Port Washington, New York, he thought they had found the best possible elder care solution.
In exchange for a steep entrance fee — about $840,000, funded by the sale of the Long Island house they had owned for nearly 50 years — they would have care for the rest of their lives at the Harborside. They selected a contract from several options that set stable monthly fees at about $6,000 for both of them and would refund half the entrance fee to their estate after their deaths.
