The Long-Term Care Risk Women Need to Plan For

I’m tackling something a lot of us would rather avoid (I dodged it for years myself), and I want to lay out not just the uncomfortable headline that women are far more likely to need long-term care, but what that care costs and how long it usually lasts. What good is a retirement plan if you don’t know how expensive a nursing home will be, or the price of an aide who will assist you in your home, or the cost of that private room you might one day need?

The burden falls heavier on our shoulders

After weeks buried in this research, I can lay out the numbers most women never get told (and the ones we don’t worry about but should). Let’s begin with that. About 57 percent of Americans who turn sixty-five will suffer from a disability severe enough to necessitate long-term care, as reported in a 2022 report from the Health and Human Services Department. Roughly 26 percent of women, when compared to 17.5 percent of men, will need that assistance for longer than five years. On average, a woman requires 3.6 years of long-term care, whereas a man needs 2.5 years.

As Laura Mattia, a certified financial planner and senior vice president with Wealth Enhancement’s Atlas Team in Sarasota, Florida, put it: “Women aren’t just more likely to need care. They’re more likely to need care last.” In many cases, she explained, a couple’s assets are used first to cover the husband’s care, and then the woman enters the highest-risk stage of her life with fewer resources and no partner to share the burden.

What long-term care means

Before proceeding further, let’s define long-term care. As ambiguous as the title is, long-term care is support with daily activities a person can’t perform independently; e.g. Bathing, dressing, feeding oneself, walking from the bed to the bathroom. While it seems clinical, it’s very personal, and can occur within a nursing home, an assisted living environment, or within your own residence.

It comes back to women living longer

Underneath it all is one thing: women, on average, live a good bit longer than men. At birth, the average male life expectancy in the United States is 76.5 years as of 2024 (CDC), while that number increases to 81.4 years for females. By 65, the gender disparity closes. After 65, a man can expect about 18.4 more years, to roughly 83.4, while a woman can expect 20.8 more, to about 85.8.

Medicare will not protect you here

A lot of women are blindsided to learn Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care at all. The safety net you assumed was there isn’t. If you fail to prepare for this gap in advance (which I STRONGLY encourage), you could find yourself overwhelmed with a bill no one warned you about.

How do people pay for this?

Some rely upon unpaid caregivers – a daughter, son-in-law, spouse or friend. Many qualify for Medicaid due to their limited income and resources. And some purchase long-term care insurance themselves. Each situation varies greatly. As Patti Black, a CFP with Savant Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama, said: “There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on their resources, what income they have available.”

What the care costs

Here’s what this care costs. National medians for 2025 for caregivers assisting people at home included $35 per hour for non-medical services and $90 per hour for private duty nurses as determined by CareScout’s March report (a subsidiary of Genworth). Semi-private rooms in nursing homes averaged $315 each day ($114,975 annually) and private rooms averaged $355 each day ($129,575 annually). Assisted living facilities ranged from $6,200 monthly ($74,400 annually).

You don’t have to cover every dollar

A lot of women assume they need a policy that covers every last dollar of this. That isn’t quite how it works. Both stand-alone long-term care policies exist as well as hybrid policies that attach coverage to life insurance or annuities. As Jeff Judge, a managing partner with Chesapeake Financial Planners in Forest Hill, Maryland, explained: “You don’t need something that covers every dollar that you’re going to spend in a nursing home or having somebody come to your house. You just need to bridge the gap between your guaranteed income, pensions, annuities, Social Security, and what the cost might be.”

Yes, women pay more than men

In addition to paying more overall for this type of coverage than men do, the difference between premiums paid by men and women is wide. Of about 5.8 million persons purchasing a stand-alone long-term care policy in 2024 (Milliman), the average age of new buyers was 57. Some people think buying that young is premature, but wait until you see the prices. A healthy female aged 55 will pay about $3,750 per annum for $165,000 worth of initial coverage along with 3% inflation protection versus a healthy male aged 55 paying $2,200 per year for similar coverage. Once both reach 65 the premium increases dramatically for her to $5,290 per year while his premium increase to $3,280 per year.

What I want you to take away

This isn’t meant to cause you to panic about every detail in these statistics; it’s intended to serve as a catalyst for planning and preparing now while you’re healthy. You need to be realistic about your chances of requiring long-term care, take advantage of opportunities to purchase insurance while you’re still healthy, and be compassionate towards yourself concerning your ability to handle long-term care expenses during a potentially difficult time in your life.

Sources

• U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services (ASPE), long-term care risk among older adults, 2022
• CDC National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy data, 2024
• CareScout (Genworth), Cost of Care data, 2025
• Milliman, long-term care insurance market, 2024
• American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, premium data

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash