Pew Research Center surveyed 8,750 American adults between September 2 and 8, 2025, and published the results in November. Among adults in their seventies, 66% had made a will. Among those aged 80 and older, about 80% had. Among adults in their sixties the figure fell to 46%, and among adults under 60, one third or fewer had one.
Income moved the number as much as age. Among adults 70 and older, Pew reported that “83% of adults ages 70 and older with upper incomes say they have a will,” against 51% of those with lower incomes.
Dying without a will does not mean the state takes your property, which is the version most people have heard. It means a statute written before anyone knew your name decides who receives it.
What intestacy actually is
Every state has a statute of intestate succession. It sets a fixed order of who inherits, in what shares, when there is no valid will. The court applies it. It does not consider what you would have wanted, what you told people, or who actually took care of you.
Idaho’s version is typical of the structure, and short enough to read whole. Idaho Code 15-2-102 provides that the intestate share of the surviving spouse is, as to separate property: “If there is no surviving issue or parent of the decedent, the entire intestate estate;” then “If there is no surviving issue but the decedent is survived by a parent or parents, one-half (1/2) of the intestate estate;” and then “If there are surviving issue of the deceased spouse, one-half (1/2) of the intestate estate.” As to community property, “The one-half (1/2) of community property which belongs to the decedent passes to the surviving spouse.”
Read the third clause again, because it is the one that surprises people. A married person with children who dies intestate in Idaho does not leave their separate property to their spouse. They leave half of it to the spouse and half to the children.
The fractions and the order vary between states, sometimes substantially. Community property states treat marital property differently from common law states. Some states give the spouse the entire estate where all the children are also the spouse’s children. Some carve out a fixed dollar amount for the spouse before dividing the rest. The one thing every version has in common is that it is a formula, and it will not match your intentions except by accident.
Who intestacy leaves out
The statute inherits by relationship, so anyone outside the listed relationships receives nothing regardless of how central they were to your life.
- An unmarried partner, however long you lived together
- A stepchild you raised but never adopted
- A godchild, a close friend, a caregiver
- A charity you supported for thirty years
- A sibling, where a spouse or children survive
It also cannot express any preference among the people it does include. Four children take equal shares whether one of them is disabled, one is in the middle of a divorce, and one has not spoken to the family in a decade.
The part that catches families with young children
A will does two jobs. It says who gets the property, and it nominates a guardian for minor children. Intestacy handles only the first.
With no nomination on file, the court decides who raises your children, choosing among whoever comes forward. Relatives who disagree can each petition. The judge deciding is a stranger applying a best-interests standard to a family they have never met.
The property side compounds it. Money left to a minor cannot be handed to the minor. The court appoints a guardian or conservator of the property, that person answers to the court, files accountings, and hands the entire balance to the child on their eighteenth or twenty-first birthday depending on the state. Whatever the amount is, it arrives in one payment on a birthday.
What the intestacy statute never touches
This is the part worth knowing even if you never write a will, because it covers the assets most families actually have.
Property that passes by contract or by operation of law is not part of the probate estate, so intestacy has no claim on it:
- Life insurance with a living named beneficiary
- Retirement accounts with a named beneficiary, including 401(k) and IRA balances
- Annuities with a named beneficiary
- Payable-on-death bank accounts and transfer-on-death brokerage accounts
- Real property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship
- Anything already titled in a living trust
For a great many households, that list is most of what they own. Which means the beneficiary designation on a life insurance policy, a form filled in once and rarely reread, distributes more money than any will they might write.
It also means the reverse. A stale designation is not corrected by a will, and in most cases is not corrected by a divorce decree either. The Supreme Court has twice held that a named ex-spouse takes the proceeds where a federal statute governs the plan, in Egelhoff v. Egelhoff in 2001 and Hillman v. Maretta in 2013. In Hillman, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “Congress has spoken with force and clarity in directing that the proceeds belong to the named beneficiary and no other.”
What to do about it
A will is written by an attorney or, for simple estates in many states, on a properly witnessed statutory form. This is not the part we do, and anybody selling you insurance who offers to handle it should be treated carefully.
What we do handle is the half of the estate that passes by beneficiary designation, and that half is worth auditing whether or not you ever get to the will:
- Every policy and account has a named primary beneficiary
- Every one also has a contingent beneficiary
- No minor is named outright anywhere
- No former spouse is named unintentionally
- The carrier and the plan administrator hold the current version of each form
- Somebody who will survive you knows all of this exists
Apex reviews designations on every case we write and on existing policies clients bring us. If you want that half looked at, talk to a member of our team. What the review covers is set out in the fact-finder.
Nothing here is legal advice. Intestacy law is state law and the shares differ; talk to an attorney licensed where you live. No policy is bound until a carrier issues it in writing.
