TIAA survey finds 53% of adults fear outliving savings

A TIAA survey of 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18 to 65 puts fear of outliving savings at 53%, more than double the 21% who worry about underspending, and the insurer's head of lifetime income distribution argues that the fear sits on a number clients know and then misapply. The 2026 Retirement in the Age of AI and GLP-1s Survey, fielded by KRC Research between July 27 and July 31, found eight in 10 respondents carrying some financial concern about living longer, a question the survey frames through artificial intelligence and the GLP-1 medications originally developed to treat diabetes and obesity.

Tim Pitney, TIAA's managing director and head of lifetime income distribution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, traces the problem to where planning starts: population life expectancy at birth runs near 78 averaged across males and females, and workers anchor there even after clearing the health risks that pull the average down. "You get to 65, you survived any other major healthcare issues or disasters, and now your longevity is not 78, it's more akin to like 87 or 88," Pitney told InvestmentNews. "And then for a couple, for one to survive, it's into the 90s, 94, 95 or so."

That decade changes an income plan, because drawdown schedules, equity weightings and decisions about how much guaranteed income to buy all price off the horizon, and a plan built to end at 78 is a different product from one built to fund whichever half of a couple lives into the mid-90s. The survey finds 43% of respondents are not confident traditional planning methods can keep pace with longer lifespans, with the doubt higher among women (49%) and Gen Z workers (47%) — two segments whose horizons, on Pitney's arithmetic, advisors may be reading short.

The supply side has been building for this: income-linked target-date assets grew 18% in the first half, faster than the $5.3 trillion target-date market overall, according to Sway Research's mid-year report, and collective investment trusts now hold 55% of that market with income features as the next contested feature inside them. The worry is majority-wide, while the InvestmentNews report frames the tools available to close the longevity gap as underused, though the survey does not measure adoption, leaving the distance between 53% who fear running out and the share who have bought guaranteed income unquantified.

One methodological point matters for anyone treating 53% as a plan-participant number: the sample runs from 18 to 65, capturing the anxiety long before the drawdown decision and not isolating households at or near retirement, where joint life expectancy moves the arithmetic most. Whether the income share of target-date assets keeps climbing at the first-half pace is the reading to watch.