Northwestern Mutual survey: 61% expect long-term care, 54% have not planned for it

Northwestern Mutual's 2026 Planning & Progress Study asked adults whether they expected to need long-term care and whether they had planned for the cost, and the results show expectation running well ahead of preparation: 61% believed they were likely to need care at some point and 56% expected to provide it for a loved one, while 54% had made no financial plan for their own care and 60% had prepared nothing for anyone else's.

Where that care happens is settled for most: 73% preferred receiving it at home to a nursing home, assisted-living community or other medical facility, and the preference strengthens with age — 83% among surveyed Baby Boomers and older adults and 78% among Generation X, against 67% of Millennials and 61% of Generation Z. The at-home default comes with a bill. Northwestern Mutual, citing a 2025 Cost of Care Study from illumifin, put the annual cost of a home health aide working eight hours a day at $99,280 in 2025, a figure that could exceed $500,000 by 2058 assuming increases of roughly 5% a year, and the survey offers no comparable figure for facility care, leaving the eight-hour aide as the number to model against whatever care a client says they expect.

The clearest divide in the results runs along the advisory relationship: among Northwestern Mutual's respondents who worked with an adviser, 66% felt they had a long-term care financial plan and 58% had planned to care for someone else, while among those without an adviser, 34% reported having planned for their own care and 29% for others'. Those are self-assessments of preparedness, not audits of coverage, and the finding echoes studies John Hancock and LIMRA published over the past year.

James Grogan, a wealth management advisor and managing director at Northwestern Mutual, said in an email to PLANADVISER that advisers can help clients pursue two goals at once — building wealth through investments and protecting what they have built from risks such as a long-term care event — and named the first move: model the potential cost inside the household's full plan, then select the combination of savings, income and insurance that fits its circumstances.

A second conversation is hiding in the caregiving numbers: 67% of surveyed Gen Z respondents and 66% of Millennials expected to provide long-term care for a loved one, above the 56% national figure, and 39% said they were providing or had provided care, including 16% who were current caregivers. That suggests the next generation of clients may arrive already carrying a parent's care costs alongside a projection for their own, which argues for an insurance review that covers two generations rather than one.