Do Near-Retirees and Retirees Recognize Family Risk, and Are They Prepared for It?

Retirement planning often emphasizes market, health, and longevity risks, but being part of a family introduces other risks: changes in family structure, such as divorce and widowhood, and financial support for adult children and aging parents. This paper examines how often near-retirees and retirees experience these risks, how accurately they anticipate them, and the extent to which they have prepared.

We use a new survey of 1,019 Americans ages 45-80, fielded in March 2026 with Jackson National Life Insurance and Greenwald Research. Respondents define their own threshold for a “significant” financial burden, and their 10-year expectations are benchmarked against realized outcomes for roughly comparable respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

Family risks are common and costly. About half of respondents set the burden threshold at $5,000 or less. Over the past decade, 18 percent reported divorce or separation, 41 percent of parents provided significant support to an adult child, and 28 percent of those with a living parent supported a parent or in-law. Households coped by cutting spending, delaying retirement, drawing down savings, and borrowing, and planned support was funded much like unplanned support. Compared to historical experience, expectations are accurate for divorce, widowhood, and support for parents, but households substantially underestimate support for adult children: 16 percent expect to provide at least $2,500, whereas over half of HRS households did. Preparation lags even where awareness is high. Few respondents feel prepared, only about half have a will, and just 9 percent would fund family support from earmarked savings. Anticipating a transfer does not clearly improve coping strategies.

The findings of this paper show that while some headway can be made in improving the education of households regarding the probability of family-related shocks, more fruitful steps might be guiding households to take the proper steps to protect against such risks. In that context, help with planning and executing a will, financial and health powers of attorney, and other legal documents that become relevant in cases of widowhood and divorce may be particularly beneficial, given how many households want such documents in place but do not have them.