America Talks: Protecting Our Families’ Financial Futures
To better understand the attitudes, needs, and planning for retirement, Age Wave collaborated with Genworth Financial companies (Genworth) and Harris Interactive in 2010 to launch the America Talks: Protecting Our Families’ Financial Futures study, which included as survey among 2,939 Americans spanning four generations: the Silent Generation (ages 65 to 85), the Baby Boomers (ages 46 to 64), Generation X (ages 34 to 45) and Generation Y (ages 23 to 33). The research sought to bring greater insight into why Americans avoid planning for the costs associated with living longer lives, and identified some important psychological barriers preventing them from talking about preparing for an unforeseen long term care event. Among the key findings:
- Uninsured medical expenses are the biggest financial worry in retirement.
- People now view the financial goal as “having financial peace of mind” (79%) rather than “accumulating as much wealth as possible” (21%)
- Over half (55%) said being a burden on their family would be their greatest worry in the event they could no longer care for themselves. Surprisingly, death was of the least concern, with only 10% of respondents citing this as a worry.
- The overwhelming majority (over 90%) have not discussed all three key long term care topics with their family, including their spouses, adult children and their parents. The topic include: long term care options you would most prefer, the roles and responsibilities of different family members for managing care and how you will pay for long term care
- Only 9% of respondents have discussed long term care with a financial professional
- Aside from cost, “confusion” is the biggest barrier to purchasing long term care insurance
Genworth is also introducing a user-friendly version of its online survey for consumers interested in getting a snapshot of how their own views about retirement compares to others, available at: http://americatalks.questionpro.com/
An interactive press release containing downloadable content, including video from the forum the full survey report is available at: http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/genworthfinancial/43150/
