When it comes to long-term care, "I won't need it" is a risky bet for clients to make.
Around 70% of seniors will need long-term care at some point in their lifetime, with an average duration of 3.7 years for women and 2.2 years for men, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The cost of that care can vary widely across the United States.
Long-term care cost inflation slowed in 2025 after years of steep increases, according to the latest CareScout Cost of Care Survey, released Monday.
Costs for most care types grew 1% to 5% year over year, the survey found, while adult day care costs fell 5%.
CareScout, a unit of Genworth Financial that offers long-term care insurance, contacted 211,985 care providers by phone and email to complete about 16,000 surveys. Nationwide, according to the study, the median costs by type of care in 2025 were:
— $80,080 a year, or $35 an hour, for non-medical in-home care. The annual cost estimate assumes a 44-hour workweek.
— $90 an hour, or $160 a visit, for in-home care by a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse.
— $24,700 a year, or $95 a day, for adult day health care services.
— $74,400 a year, or $6,200 a month, for a spot in an assisted living community.
— $114,975 a year, or $315 a day, for a semi-private room in a nursing home.
— $129,575 a year, or $355 a day, for a private room in a nursing home.
"While we have seen some flattening in cost increases this year, the reality is that long-term care remains one of the most significant financial challenges individuals and their families face as they age," CareScout CEO Samir Shah said in a statement. "That's why planning ahead matters. Understanding care costs, and how they may evolve over time, enables individuals to explore funding options earlier and to make more confident, informed decisions about the future that reflect their care preferences."
For some clients, one of those decisions could be to relocate. Since it's common for retirees to use several types of care over a lifetime, ThinkAdvisor analyzed CareScout's median annual cost data to find the states where care is most expensive overall.
We ranked states using a composite score derived from the median annual costs of each care type. For each care type, states were assigned a percentile rank from 0 to 1 based on relative cost.
Each state's ranking reflects the average of its percentile ranks across the available care types.
Care types for which CareScout did not report data for a state were excluded from that state's average. (Adult day health care, for example, is uncommon in several states.)
See the accompanying slideshow for the 10 most expensive states for long-term care.
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