As the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) explains, your personal risk of needing long-term care is effectively binary: either you will never need it or you will. That oversimplifies reality, but it highlights an important point—you should not plan your retirement around population averages because your experience may differ. Current long-term care data reflects earlier generations that, on average, had shorter lifespans and required less care than many in today’s and future cohorts are likely to need.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) estimates that roughly 70 percent of people over age 65 will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime.1 Some critics argue that this figure can be misleading because it counts both basic assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs)—bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, transferring, and continence—and help with instrumental ADLs (IADLs), like housekeeping and managing errands. For example, hiring a housecleaner once a week might be classified by some measures as a form of long-term care, even though most people would not consider that to be care in the traditional sense. AARP provides a related measure indicating the lifetime probability of becoming disabled in at least two ADLs or developing cognitive impairment is 68 percent for those age 65 and older.2
AALTCI also reports that among people who own long-term care insurance, the probability of actually using the policy ranges from about 35 to 50 percent, depending on policy type and coverage. Remember that policies are typically purchased while people are generally healthy, so those who could not qualify for coverage are not included in those figures. If you account for people who cannot obtain insurance, the share of the population that will eventually need significant assistance with daily living is likely higher.
Putting these data points together, a reasonable interpretation is that somewhere between about 50 and 70 percent of people will require meaningful help with day-to-day activities—or a higher level of care—at some point in their lives.
Statistics about the likelihood of needing assisted living do not answer another critical question: how long will care be required? That is a separate consideration and can have a major impact on planning and costs. I address the expected duration of long-term care in a different post you can read on this site.