Americans Fear This Retirement Setback More Than Death

If there’s one thing Americans fear more than death, it might be outliving their savings.

That’s one finding from an annual survey by the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement. It found that 67% of Americans worry more about running out of money than death.

The survey reflects a sense that Americans may be growing less concerned about dying, and more perturbed by the financial implications of remaining alive.

“It’s running out of money,” said Kelly LaVigne, vice president of consumer insights at Allianz. “It’s not being able to afford healthcare. It’s not being able to afford long-term care.”

The Allianz survey, released in late April, asked Americans to choose the bigger of two worries: death, or running out of money. In five recent annual surveys, “running out of money” has always won. This year, the margin was higher than ever. The survey reached 1,000 adults ages 25 and over with household incomes of at least $50,000 or investable assets of at least $150,000.

There are several reasons, both economic and socioeconomic, why Americans may be worrying more these days about outliving their money. People are living longer. Inflation is running high. The costs of health care and long-term care are rising. Fewer workers are retiring with pensions that provide a guaranteed income stream.

Collectively, those factors drive up expectations for how much money an ordinary American might need to fund even a modest retirement.

“You start to see these stories: In order to have a comfortable retirement, you have to have $1.4 million,” said David John, a senior strategic policy adviser at the AARP Public Policy Institute. “People see big numbers. And what big numbers may or may not do is actually apply to them. But what it does is scare people.”

Our Biggest Retirement Fears: Money, Money, Money

In a more expansive retirement study, also released in April, the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies ranked America’s greatest retirement fears. Most of them came down to money. Here are the top three:

Declining health that requires long-term care (cited by 39% of respondents)
Social Security cuts (38%)
Outliving savings and investments (36%)

“We can’t overestimate the financial strains that Americans are facing,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO of the Transamerica Center.

Hard data supports those fears.

Long-term care costs are rising. The average assisted living facility now charges $6,200 a month, according to CareScout.

Social Security faces a shortfall as soon as 2032. If Congress does nothing, research suggests, retirees will see a 28% cut in monthly benefits.

Life expectancy at birth reached 79 years in 2024, a record high, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. A longer life raises the odds of outliving your money, often with mounting care costs.

“In recent decades, we’ve seen tremendous increases in life expectancy and lifespan, but not necessarily in health-span,” Collinson said.

Outliving your savings is a daunting fear, retirement experts say. Here are some financial moves you can make to allay it.

Delay Claiming Social Security

It’s tempting to take Social Security at age 62, when it becomes available to most retirees. But there are good reasons to wait.

For every year you postpone taking Social Security, your monthly benefit rises, up to age 70. Economists make a compelling case that you will reap more money over your lifetime if you wait, based on human longevity.

“The closer you can get to age 70 before you claim, the higher your lifetime benefit will be,” said John of AARP. “The more of your essential expenses you can cover with Social Security, the better off you are.”

Max Out Your Retirement Saving

Thanks to recent changes in federal law, workers who are approaching retirement age can save more than ever in 401(k) or IRA accounts.

Any employee with a 401(k) plan can contribute as much as $24,500 in 2026. Savers 50 or older can make additional “catch-up” contributions up to $8,000, raising the total contribution to $32,500. Workers aged 60, 61, 62 and 63 have an even higher “super catch-up contribution” limit of $11,250.

IRA contribution limits are comparatively modest. The 2026 limit is $7,500. The catch-up contribution limit for older savers is $1,100, for a total contribution of $8,600.

Make a Retirement Plan

Clearly, many Americans worry about retirement. But we may not spend enough time planning for it.

Only 29% of Americans engage in retirement planning on a regular basis, the Transamerica Center reports, and only 31% work with professional financial advisers.

A retirement plan might start with a visit to the Social Security website. There, you can get a personalized estimate of what your monthly benefit check would be if you retired at various ages.

Then, you can tally up your core spending: monthly outlays on food, shelter, transportation and other essentials.

See how your monthly spending compares with your expected Social Security benefit. Then, look at what other sources of income you might have, and see how they match up.

All of those calculations become a lot easier if you work with a professional adviser, retirement experts say.

“Access to a financial adviser can be helpful,” Collinson said, “because they work with hundreds or thousands of clients, so they have experience with what the potential risks and the potential outcomes can be.”

Consider Long-Term Care Insurance

Long-term care insurance comes in many varieties. Costs vary dramatically according to the dollar amount of the benefit, the length of care covered, and other variables.

A typical policy, providing a $165,000 benefit for a single adult of 55, might cost $950 a year for a man and $1,500 for a woman, the National Council on Aging reported in 2025.

“A long-term care policy is the best answer, if you can afford to get it and you can find somebody to write you one,” said LaVigne of Allianz.

Another option is to purchase a life insurance policy with a long-term care rider, which permits you to use some or all of the death benefit to cover long-term care.