Care & Living with Mercer
A helping hand to navigate the complexity of aged care.
Care & Living with Mercer is a unique, first-of-its-kind service that provides independent guidance, support and advice for families planning for ageing care.
Navigating aged care options is challenging, time-consuming and confusing. Care & Living with Mercer is a unique service helping ageing Australians and their carers understand and more easily access care and living options.
Care & Living with Mercer provides comprehensive guidance and advice to help families understand and arrange every step along an ageing care journey; from first needing a little support at home, right-sizing or moving into retirement living, through to residential care and end of life planning. The advice we provide is holistic, person-centred and absolutely independent. Care & Living with Mercer is a national service and has helped Australians in every state and territory.
Care & Living with Mercer’s guidance and advice is made available to Australians through their employer or superannuation fund as a benefit, or via selected financial advisers.
How it works
A highly experienced team of Australian-based Care Consultants provides specialised guidance and advice – digitally and on a one to one basis.
People start out by developing a personalised plan for care in our digital portal, for themselves or a loved one. Our comprehensive tool guides families through each step of the ageing care system to help them better understand their options and arrange the right support for themselves or their family member. Our care consultants are on hand to help carers work through a wide array of queries and potential stumbling blocks and offer them confidential support as they navigate new territory and difficult decisions.
When care needs have become more urgent or acute, Care & Living with Mercer also offers a more specialised Care Concierge service. Our one-to-one Care Concierge service is paid for directly by the user of our service and offers a comprehensive plan, placement service and support to find back-up care when required. The Care Concierge team work hand in hand with families to assess needs and secure quality care, and are accustomed to helping families cope with time-critical situations.
We recognize that caring responsibilities come in many forms. We have helped grandchildren and children support grandparents and parents. Chosen families of all kinds working together across generations to support elderly relatives or other loved ones. Couples and individuals planning ahead to ensure they are in control of their future and not leaving difficult decisions to their relatives. All have benefited from our Guidance & Advice and from our Care Concierge service.
Why this matters
Australia’s population is ageing. In fact:
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By 2055, 23% of Australians will be aged 65 and older
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By 2055, almost one-quarter of Australians will be aged 45-65 years and potential carers supporting their parents
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One in eight working Australians are currently caregivers
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70% of primary carers are women
This demographic shift is placing increasing demands on care providers and the ageing care system as a whole. The system has been identified as complex, time consuming and difficult for families to work through to secure the care needed.
That’s where Care & Living with Mercer comes in. Our easy to use online portal generates detailed, personalised, step-by-step “roadmaps” to ageing care. Further supported by our expert care consulting team, Care & Living with Mercer provides all the guidance and advice Australians need to successfully navigate every aspect of ageing care and secure the care outcome they need.
I’m An Employer
As Australians live longer, families and workplaces will be increasingly impacted by caregiving needs. The responsibility to support and care for our older Australians often falls to their “adult children”, often still in the workforce. These responsibilities will increasingly contribute to unplanned leave, loss of productivity and even loss of talent.
Our research shows that it can take between 100 and 300 hours to research and implement a new care arrangement. Many of those hours are, by necessity, during typical office hours. Help your employees by providing a solution to this complex and time-consuming process. Through accessing our easy to use online portal, your employees can better understand the care and lifestyle options that are available to their loved ones and how best to access that care. Further, your employees will have full access to our highly experienced care consulting team to talk through any issues or questions they may have relating to ageing care and living.
You will reinforce your culture of care, positively influence your employee value proposition and give employees time and energy back in their days. They will also gain greater confidence that their loved ones can live better and longer lives with independence, dignity and security.
I’m A Financial Planner
The ageing care journey is often the missing piece of the retirement planning puzzle. Your clients will often choose to spend less than they could in retirement, as they worry about possible future care costs. Help your clients plan for where and how they will live as they age, enabling them to maintain their control, independence and dignity throughout their ageing journey.
Care & Living with Mercer provides comprehensive guidance and advice to help families understand and arrange every step along an ageing care journey; from first needing a little support at home, right-sizing or moving into retirement living, through to residential care and end of life planning. The advice we provide is holistic, person-centred and absolutely independent. Care & Living with Mercer is a national service and has helped Australians in every state and territory.
Who will care for the human at work?
I Work For A Super Fund
Superannuation Funds are ideally placed to support their members’ ageing journey by working with us. The full spectrum of our user base will be represented among your membership.
Helping your members, and their families understand their options for ageing care will enable better ageing care plans and better design and implementation of care arrangements. Importantly our guidance and advice can also enable more robust and informed forecasting of expenses and the assets required for future care needs. This can help your members better determine the level of retirement income they can afford to drawdown. This is particularly effective when our care and living advice is used in coordination with your fund’s financial advice to develop truly holistic retirement plans.
As funds increasingly compete directly for membership, offering your members benefits like Care & Living with Mercer can greatly enhance your service proposition and play a role in member retention into and beyond retirement. By sponsoring the service, you can remove the fee barrier for all members to access unlimited “Guidance and Advice” for their ageing care and living needs, wherever they are in their ageing journey.
I need Guidance and Advice
About Care & Living with Mercer
Care & Living with Mercer is a trusted, independent, easy-to-use service that supports better ageing care choices for all Australians. Our service includes guidance and advice, implementation of care arrangements and backup care support.
No matter what situation you find yourself in, we are here to help – our service supports families Australia-wide through the full spectrum of care, from home care to retirement living, residential aged care and end-of-life planning.