Spousal Decision Making and Long-Term Care Insurance

Guided by decision-making in families theory, the current study investigated the role of spousal decision-making processes on purchasing long-term care insurance (LTCI) behavior using a sample of married women (N = 292) and men (N = 277) who were not married to each other. Spousal consensus regarding LTCI as a solution to the risk of long-term care (LTC) and spousal consensus regarding affordability of LTCI premiums had a significant, positive relationship with women’s probability of purchasing LTCI. Spousal influence, as well as spousal consensus regarding LTC as a risk and LTCI as a solution to this risk, had a significant, positive relationship with men’s probability of purchasing LTCI. Findings indicate that spousal decision-making processes, especially consensus, play an integral role in LTCI decision outcomes, but in different ways depending on gender. Financial professionals and educators can build more meaningful decision-making strategies by recognizing and addressing differences in consensus and influence processes when working with married women and men.