2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study

The Amount of Americans With a Will Has Declined Steadily Since 2022, but the Majority of Those With a Will Updated It in the Past Five Years, Potentially Due to COVID-19

Key Takeaways

For 2025, Caring's Wills Survey considered how often Americans updated their existing estate planning documents. As we dug into the data, we discovered the myriad of ways the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the estate planning landscape.

Since 2015, Caring.com has conducted a wills survey to raise awareness about the importance of estate planning. For the ninth installment, we partnered with YouGov to poll 2,500+ American adults aged 18 to 55+ about whether or not they had a will, what made them update their estate documents, and what might make them begin the estate planning process. 

White respondents represented the majority (63%), while Black and Hispanic respondents accounted for 12% and 16%, respectively. People who identified as "Other" comprised 9% of respondents. Participants did not identify their genders outside the binary. 

The amount of Americans with estate planning documents has declined since 2022, when more than 50% of respondents said that estate planning was somewhat or very important to them. Now, more than 50% of respondents don't have a will at all. 

Note: Respondents were allowed to select all applicable types of estate planning documents, so the below chart totals more than 100%

Surprisingly, the cohort aged 35 to 54 (often the caretaker cohort or sandwich generation) is the largest group without estate documents. The youngest cohort (18-34) had fewer respondents reporting a lack of estate planning documents. The 18-34 cohort had the largest presence on TikTok, so the TikTok partnerships that promoted estate planning websites in 2024 could explain why the youngest cohort had more estate planning participation than the group immediately above them.

Many respondents over 55 appear to have their estate plans in place, which supports  "retirement or age-related milestone" as the top reason people made a will. Retirement or age milestones ranked fourth among motivating factors that might encourage those without estate plans to start a will or trust.

Since 2022, procrastination has been the most popular answer for why people haven't made a will or a trust. Men procrastinate on estate planning more than women, but only by a slim margin.

Holding steady from the 2024 wills survey, 43% of respondents without a will "just haven't gotten around to it"— and fewer people are "getting around to it" this year than usual. In 2025, only 24% of wills survey respondents said they have a will, 13% reported a living trust, and 4% said they had other estate planning documents. This figure is down from 33% of respondents with a will in 2022.

While world events may jumpstart reflection on life and legacy for some, these happenings are not likely to make Americans start estate planning. Only 8% of respondents said that national current events like natural disasters, political shifts, mass shootings, and climate change would make them consider getting a will.

Family expansion through birth or marriage ranked third among the top reasons Americans had created wills and trusts, yet many U.S. parents don't have plans in place to protect their children if they die. According to this data, children do not appear to be a main motivator for those without estate planning documents to start planning.

While the birth of a child ranked fifth in reasons people without an estate plan would want to start estate planning, most respondents with children under 18 do not have estate planning documents.

Nearly a quarter of respondents say "nothing" could ever motivate them to begin planning their estate, a number that held fairly steady from 2023 (24% of respondents) and 2024 (23% of respondents).

Most Americans do not seem averse to estate planning — it's simply not a priority. The most significant reasons that 56% of respondents don't have a will or trust are because it's low on the to-do list, and they don't feel they have enough assets to leave anyone.

The overwhelming majority of adults have not put energy towards estate planning. However, 20% of respondents without a will have at least talked to a loved one about their wishes, and 16% have begun estate planning research online. This data indicates that people might want to start estate planning but do not know how to begin the process. 

Most of those who have talked to a loved one or begun online estate planning research are parents.

Americans agree on one major reason to look into estate planning: their health. A medical diagnosis or health concern was the largest motivator respondents without estate documents gave, followed by the purchase of a significant asset (like a home). Retirement rounds out the top reasons Americans without wills are likely to begin estate planning.

Medical diagnoses significantly affect estate planning trends over time — 43% of respondents in 2024 said a diagnosis would motivate them to get a will, while 37% of respondents in 2025 said the same. 

Our 2025 Wills Study breaks the data down further. For the people who have wills and updated them, medical diagnoses account for 10% of respondents' chosen reasons. Preparations for serious medical procedures were cited in 7% of estate planning updates.

Many Americans don't update their wills. It's understandable — creating a will can be a large undertaking, depending on the size of your estate. And while updating a will or trust should be easier than originating one, most adults don't want to do more clerical work than necessary. It's not entirely surprising, then, that nearly one in four Americans haven't touched their wills since origination.

Still, 62% of respondents updated their wills between six months and five years ago. As we mentioned earlier, those updates are not because of current events — they may have occurred due to past events. One occurrence in particular was a primary driver: the COVID-19 pandemic.

While we're no longer in the lockdown stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's still affecting how we think about our lives — and deaths. But not in a morbid way, as it did for the 2022 Wills Survey; 2025 Wills Survey findings indicate the COVID-19 pandemic led to Americans experiencing a change in assets, and (as it should) a change in assets led to a change in estate planning.

The most popular reasons for updating a will indicate positive changes; 30% of respondents updated their wills because they got a large raise, inherited money, or bought property, while 23% updated their estate plans to accommodate births and marriages.

Most respondents reported updating their wills in the past five years, which aligns with the critical years of and following the pandemic. That timeframe also aligns with when the pandemic led to historically low mortgage rates. It's possible some of the 30% of respondents who updated their wills after buying property purchased real estate (their first home or investment properties) during the pandemic and the period of low mortgage rates that followed.

The 23% of respondents who updated their estate plans due to birth or marriage may also have done so due to pandemic outcomes. Brookings Institute reports that, by 2021, there was a "period of elevated births" due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year is within the five-year period that a quarter of Americans updated their wills and trusts.

Given that nearly a quarter of respondents haven't updated their estate planning documents since origination, it's not surprising that some have moved away from the place they first had their estate drawn up. 

While having a will that applies in another U.S. state is certainly better than dying without a will, inheritance law varies from state to state. Some states may have statutes that others do not. Americans who have relocated since their initial estate planning should check with a local lawyer to ensure they're prepared.

• 2024 Wills Survey
• 2023 Wills Survey
• 2022 Wills Survey
• 2021 Wills Survey
• 2020 Wills Survey
• 2019 Wills Survey
• 2017 Wills Survey
• 2015 Wills Survey

• Botros, Alena. (2023). The big winners of the pandemic: 2% mortgage rate holders. Fortune
• Kearney, Melissa S. et al. (2023). US births are down again, after the COVID baby bust and rebound. Brookings Institute
• Luftman, Doug. (n.d.). Moving out of state? Time to review your estate plan. Trust & Will