Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs): What to Know Before You Sign

The three contract types

• Type A (life care): the highest entrance fee, but monthly costs stay essentially flat even if you move to assisted living or nursing care — the community absorbs that risk.
• Type B (modified): a lower entrance fee that includes a limited amount of higher-level care before converting to fee-for-service.
• Type C (fee-for-service): the lowest entrance fee, but you pay close to the full market rate for care when you need it — you carry more of the risk.

Entrance fees commonly range from the low hundreds of thousands to over $1 million, plus a monthly fee on top — for life, not a one-time cost.

Whether the entrance fee comes back

Entrance fees can be fully non-refundable, refundable on a declining schedule (the refundable portion shrinks over a set period), or a flat percentage (often 50–90%) guaranteed back to the resident or their estate. A refundable plan costs more up-front but matters a great deal for estate planning — get the exact schedule in writing, including what happens if the unit hasn’t been resold yet.

How California regulates these

California’s Department of Social Services regulates the financial side of CCRCs separately from RCFE care-quality licensing — providers must submit annual audited financial statements, reserve schedules, and periodic actuarial studies assessing whether they can actually keep their long-term promises. California law also gives residents a real cancellation right: a 90-day window from the date you actually move in (not from signing) to cancel and get a refund, minus a processing fee and the value of services already used.

Why financial due diligence isn’t optional

Several CCRCs nationally have filed for bankruptcy in recent years, and resident refund claims typically rank as unsecured debt — behind bondholders and lenders — meaning families have recovered only a fraction of six-figure entrance fees when a provider fails. The business model depends on steady new move-ins to fund promises to existing residents, which is exactly what makes financial health the single highest-leverage thing to check before signing — not an afterthought.