Meet Insurance Specialist
Elka Harms

Elka Harms is on a mission to protect lives. For nearly a decade she has specialized in educating people – especially women – about a type of insurance that can prevent them from losing everything they have worked for their entire lives. “What I have seen over and over are situations where the husband didn’t believe in insurance, then all the money they had goes for his long-term care, and she is left impoverished,” Elka says. “At least six out of ten women I see are living in substandard conditions because of this denial of the facts and subsequent lack of planning. It breaks my heart.”

The other situation she sees a lot of is people in their seventies and eighties who are spending their money on long-term care and feel badly that they won’t have anything to leave to their children.

Both situations will only escalate, Elka says, as baby boomers get older and the cost of care increases.

There are many options for coverage when buying long-term care or short-term care insurance, including coverage that allows you to receive round-the-clock care in your own home. It is important, Elka says, to buy the insurance when you are healthy and are eligible. This means to ideally start the process while in your 40s. Also, the younger you are the more affordable this type of insurance is. “We advise people, no matter what age, to get set up with long-term care insurance so they don’t lose their lifetime savings later.”

Coincidentally, Elka is living in the very situation she tries to keep people from. She just moved to St. Petersburg from her home in California, to care for her parents, both in their upper 80s. Elka has five siblings, all living in Boston, where their parents moved the family from Poland when Elka was 10. All were willing, but Elka was the only one of the six offspring who had the flexibility at home and work to make the move to Florida to help care for their parents, who retired to Florida 20 years ago. It meant leaving her 28-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son, friends, and her church behind. It was tough, she says, and it has only been her faith that has made it bearable.

Elka has always been committed to volunteer work no matter how busy her work life is, and for relaxation she loves to walk and run on the beach, go to movies, and read.