Estate Planning
Estate Planning
New national survey data shows most American adults still have no will or estate plan in place. Here's what the numbers reveal and how families can close the gap.
Only about a third of American adults have a will, trust, or advance directive in place, according to Caring.com's 2023 Wills and Estate Planning Study, an annual survey conducted with YouGov since 2015. The 2023 edition polled more than 2,400 adults and found that while 64% believe having a will is important, just 34% actually have one. Inflation is reshaping how people think about their financial futures, with roughly 1 in 4 respondents saying rising costs made them see a greater need for estate planning. This guide breaks down what the survey found about who has estate plans, who's putting them off, and why, then explains the core documents families need to understand before they get started.
A 2023 Caring.com/YouGov survey of 2,400+ adults found only 34% have an estate plan despite 64% saying it matters. Procrastination, lack of assets, and confusion about documents are the biggest barriers.
Caring.com's 2023 Wills and Estate Planning Study found that 34% of American adults have some form of estate planning document, up three percentage points from 2022 and six points since 2020. That means roughly two out of three adults have no will, trust, or advance directive at all, even though 64% of respondents told surveyors that having a will is very or somewhat important. The 34% figure is the highest the survey has recorded since it began tracking this question in 2015, suggesting slow but steady progress even as the majority of adults remain unprotected.
Patrick Hicks, General Counsel and Head of Legal at Trust & Will, called the gap between attitudes and action troubling, noting that estate planning is one of the most overlooked pieces of a comprehensive financial plan. He pointed out that most people plan for retirement but skip the step that protects what they've saved once they're gone.
About 1 in 4 respondents said inflation made them see a greater need for estate planning, often out of concern for how rising costs would affect their heirs. Roughly 1 in 10 said the increased value of assets like real estate was the driving factor. But inflation cuts both ways: 9% said they now see less need for a plan because inflation reduced their asset values, and 7% said they'd sold off assets and no longer felt planning was necessary.
The effect varied sharply by age. Half of adults under 35 said inflation changed their view on estate planning, compared with only 32% of adults 55 and older, who were more likely to already have a plan in place before inflation became a concern.
The survey found notable demographic gaps. Hispanic Americans saw the sharpest decline, with only 23% reporting a will in 2023, down 17% from 2022 and 39% from the 2021 peak of 32%. Over the same period, estate planning rates rose 11% among white Americans and 3.5% among Black Americans, who were also the group most likely to say inflation changed their views on planning, at 51%.
Income and education also matter. Americans earning $80,000 or more were the most likely to have a plan at 49%, more than double the 22% rate among those earning under $40,000. Adults with postgraduate degrees remained the most likely group overall at 50%, though that figure actually fell from 54% the year before. The survey also found that homeowners were far more likely than renters to have a plan in place, since owning real estate is often what first prompts people to think seriously about what happens to their assets.
| Document | When It Takes Effect | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Will | After death | Directing property, debts, guardianship |
| Living trust | Immediately once created | Larger estates, avoiding probate |
| Advance directive | During incapacity, while alive | End-of-life and medical decisions |
| Power of attorney | While alive, if designated | Financial or legal decisions if incapacitated |
One of the more striking findings involves generational change. Young adults ages 18 to 34 are now 63% more likely to have an estate plan than they were in 2020, rising from 16% to 26%. That puts them nearly even with adults ages 35 to 54, who sit at 27%, a gap of just one percentage point compared with 11 points back in 2020.
Older adults 55 and up remain the most likely age group to have a plan overall, at 46%. Still, that means more than half of adults in that age bracket have no will or estate documents, even though most respondents across all ages said planning should start well before then.
Among people without a will, 42% cited procrastination, calling it simply not having gotten around to it. Another 35% said they didn't have enough assets to leave behind, up 6% from 2022. Other commonly cited barriers include not knowing how to create a plan (15%), the cost of setting one up (14%), and not having anyone to leave assets to (8%). Younger respondents were more likely than older ones to cite cost as a barrier, reflecting the reality that estate planning has traditionally required paying an attorney by the hour.
These reasons split along income and education lines. Wealthier and more highly educated respondents were far more likely to blame procrastination, with 60% of those holding postgraduate degrees citing it as their main reason. Lower-income respondents, by contrast, more often pointed to a lack of assets worth planning around.
When asked what would finally motivate them to create a will, 41% of respondents without one cited a medical diagnosis or health scare, more than any other trigger. But waiting for a health crisis carries real risk: if someone becomes too ill or cognitively impaired to make legal decisions, it may be too late to create valid estate documents.
Other common motivators included buying a home (22%), retirement or another age milestone (21%), and family changes like marriage or a new child (20%). Roughly 1 in 4 people without a plan said nothing would motivate them to create one, and about 1 in 3 lower-income respondents said the same.
The survey highlights three core documents. A will directs how property, debts, and guardianship are handled after death and covers most people's needs. A trust, often called a living trust, takes effect immediately once created rather than after death, and is generally recommended for larger estates because it can help avoid probate court and keep the estate's details private. Both documents can be updated as circumstances change, such as after a marriage, divorce, birth, or major change in assets, which is why estate planning experts recommend revisiting them every few years rather than treating them as a one-time task.
Chas Rampenthal, General Counsel for LegalZoom, noted that the larger an estate's value, the greater the case for a living trust, largely because probate can be a long, costly, and public process. Advance directives, meanwhile, spell out end-of-life care wishes and what happens if someone becomes unable to communicate. Nearly 1 in 5 survey respondents said they didn't know what an advance directive even was.
Hicks noted that the estate planning industry, long seen as archaic, was pushed to modernize during COVID-19, and that online tools now let people create legally sound plans from home at lower cost than traditional attorneys. Rules around signing and storing documents electronically have also loosened in many states, removing a barrier that used to require in-person notarization.
Phillip H. Palmer, a managing executive at The Chestnut Street Group, emphasized that an advance healthcare directive in particular takes pressure off family members who would otherwise have to guess at a loved one's wishes during a medical crisis. For families with an aging parent or relative, starting with a directive and a simple will is often the most practical first step. A power of attorney is often paired with these two documents as well, since it designates someone to handle financial and legal matters if a person becomes unable to manage them personally.
Two out of three American adults have no estate plan, even though most say it matters. The survey's clearest lesson: procrastination and confusion about documents, not cost alone, keep families unprotected.
Caring.com's 2023 survey makes clear that the gap between believing in estate planning and actually completing one is the real problem, not lack of concern. Families waiting for a health crisis, a milestone, or more assets before acting are taking on unnecessary risk, since incapacity can eliminate the ability to sign legal documents at all. The practical fix is starting small: a basic will and an advance healthcare directive cover most needs, while a living trust becomes worthwhile mainly for larger or more complex estates. Modern online services have also made the process faster and cheaper than it once was. For families who feel overwhelmed by where to begin, the survey's findings point to a clear order of operations: start with the documents that matter most in a crisis, then revisit more complex planning as circumstances warrant.
If an aging parent has no will, trust, or advance directive and shows early signs of cognitive decline, memory loss, or a serious diagnosis, treat it as urgent. Once someone loses the legal capacity to understand and sign documents, courts may require guardianship proceedings instead, a longer and more expensive path for the whole family.