Financial decisions in later life are rarely made alone — and understanding the full decision-making ecosystem is essential to serving this audience well. We help financial and insurance teams uncover how older adults and their caregivers navigate Medicare options, long-term care planning, fraud risk, and everyday banking — so your products, communications, and services can meet them where they are.
Hear How Older Adults and Caregivers Navigate Financial Decisions
Adult children help aging parents compare Medicare Advantage plans. Spouses jointly manage accounts, benefits, and bills. Trustees step in when cognitive decline makes independent decisions difficult. The stakes are high — and so is the confusion. Across every channel and touchpoint, financial services and insurance teams need a clear-eyed view of how decisions actually get made in later life.
Complex Choices
Medicare, supplemental plans, and long-term care options are difficult for even informed consumers to navigate confidently.
Shared Decisions
Most major financial decisions involve at least one family member or caregiver acting as advisor, advocate, or co-decision-maker.
Emotional Weight
Financial planning in later life carries anxiety, uncertainty, and deeply personal concerns about dignity, independence, and security.
What We Explore
Our research covers the full landscape of financial decision-making in later life — from product comprehension to interpersonal dynamics to emotional undercurrents. We help teams move beyond assumptions and build a grounded understanding of how older adults and their caregivers actually think, feel, and act.
Medicare & Insurance Product Comprehension
How seniors and caregivers understand, compare, and ultimately choose Medicare Advantage, supplemental insurance, and long-term care coverage — including where terminology breaks down and trust is won or lost.
Fraud Risk & Financial Security
Perceptions of financial vulnerability, awareness of common scams, and the emotional weight of financial planning in later life — including how fear and distrust shape product engagement and decision-making behavior.
Caregiver Roles in Banking & Planning
The often-invisible role caregivers play in bill payment, account management, and major financial decisions — and how financial institutions can better support both the older adult and the people helping them.
Example Use Cases
From testing new member communications to mapping complex family decision journeys, our research helps financial and insurance teams design better products, clearer messaging, and more supportive experiences for older adults and the people who care for them.
Testing Benefits Communications
Evaluate how clearly older customers understand new benefits, protections, or digital tools — including what builds confidence, what creates confusion, and what messaging resonates across literacy levels and technology comfort.
Mapping the Long-Term Care Decision Journey
Chart the full joint decision-making process between seniors and their adult children or spouses when evaluating long-term care insurance — including emotional triggers, trust signals, and points where the process stalls or breaks down.
Assess how older adults perceive and respond to fraud risk — what they trust, what raises red flags, and how financial institutions can communicate protective tools without triggering alarm or eroding confidence.
Methods We Often Use
We draw on a range of qualitative and quantitative methods — always tailored to the audience and the question at hand. Our approaches are designed to reach older adults and caregivers in ways that are respectful, accessible, and richly informative.
In-Depth Interviews
One-on-one conversations with older adults, caregivers, or both — conducted by phone, video, or in person — to uncover nuanced attitudes, experiences, and decision-making processes.
Dyadic & Family Interviews
Joint sessions with seniors and their caregivers or adult children, capturing the real dynamic of shared financial decisions as they unfold between the people who make them together.
Surveys & Quantitative Studies
Large-scale surveys designed for accessibility and clarity — measuring comprehension, attitudes, behavioral intentions, and segment differences across older adult and caregiver populations.
Usability & Concept Testing
Structured sessions that evaluate how older customers interact with communications, digital tools, or product concepts — identifying friction points and opportunities to improve clarity and confidence.
Journey Mapping
Synthesizing research into clear visual maps of the decision-making journey — showing key moments, emotional states, information needs, and where your organization can make the greatest impact.
Ethnographic & Observational Research
In-context observation and home visits that reveal how older adults manage financial tasks in their daily lives — capturing behaviors and workarounds that interviews alone cannot surface.