Assured Allies Announces 2024 Predictions for Successful Aging and Long-Term Care
What’s in store for 2024? We gathered our top leaders, ear-to-the-grounders, and trusted mentor and futurist Adam Hanft to bring you our best predictions on two of the hot topics in our company wheelhouse, Successful Aging and the long-term care industry. Enjoy!
We’re long on long-term care insurance
Accelerating trends
Trends already established will build momentum into 2024 and beyond. More states will experiment with a mandatory LTC employee tax to ensure broader coverage, and InsureTech innovation like our own NeverStop Wellness will continue to loosen what has been an industry-wide lockjam since the actuarial miscalculations of the1990s, by carving out new paths to profitability that serve the needs of business and consumers alike.
Sooner or later, supply follows demand
Given that 70% of all Americans will need some form of long-term care before they pass on, with an average cost of 250K, there will be a consumer rush to purchase long-term care Insurance. Whether that happens in 2024 is anyone’s guess, but sooner or later, it’s inevitable.
Must-have new wellness benefits
69% of employers offer wellness benefits, with 75% offering incentives to encourage uptake. Long-term care insurance and support for caregivers are both neglected benefit categories, and we predict that 2024 will be the year that employers recognize that they need to offer one or both to stay competitive and improve productivity.
Marketers finally wake up to ageism—and move past it
We’ve come such a long way since E-Trade’s ageist 2018 Superbowl commercial, and the tide will continue to turn towards age-positive advertising, building on momentum from Gillette’s Handle with Care ad in 2017 and Chevrolet’s 2023 holiday ad. More brands will wake up to the commercial potential for re-framing aging as a meaningful and aspirational life stage in order to successfully engage the 80 million U.S. adults turning 65 by 2030.
Boomers bow the culture—again
The year of grand-influencers
We’ve read about this phenomenon in the past, but we predict 2024 will see an explosion of an older generation finding fame and fortune on TikTok, with big brands starting to support and sponsor them.
Older adults are…sexy?
Yesss. Celebrities like Lenny Kravitz (60 and sizzling on Esquire) and Martha Stewart (81 and gorgeous on Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue) are paving the way for ordinary people to own this territory, and more and more of them will. Why not?
The pressure for more legislation, lots of it
Cover my robot please
With AI creating a new generation of “care robots” to help seniors keep living in their homes, expect to see massive pressure on Medicare to include this technology in basic coverage. Of course, the cost of this cyber-therapy will be more than offset by long-term reductions in health care costs.
Elder scam: something everyone can hate
With the GAO reporting that elder fraud has reached $2.9B – call it “ScAMERICA” – we expect to see this emotional issue bring together Democrats and Republicans in a bi-partisan reaction to the crisis.
Neighborhood, sweet neighborhood
With the increasing recognition that innovation is required to allow seniors to keep living at home, we predict that in 2024 cities across America will follow the recent steps of NYC to allow zoning changes that will allow affordable garages, studios, apartments and backyard cottages for an aging population.
Family supporting family
In some states, family members can be reimbursed for providing care. Given the reality that most seniors can’t afford in-home care, and that there are many family members who desperately want to help but can’t sacrifice the income, we expect that more and more states will recognize that this is a win-win and will begin a reimbursement model.
Aging in the house of the future
By 2040, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 80 million U.S. citizens—almost a quarter of the population—will be over 80. Innovators like the McKechnie Family LIFE Home center—who are innovating the smart homes of the future—will garner increasing attention and funding in 2024.
