Why should you be interested in your longevity? Longevity describes the ability to live a long life beyond the average age at death. (De Benedictis & Franceschi) Think of longevity as the average lifespan under ideal conditions.
Life expectancy is the amount of time a person is expected to live based on the year they were born, their current age, and various demographic factors. Most people will live either a shorter or longer time than the life expectancy of their current age.
In contrast, maximum lifespan is the maximum time that members of a population have been observed to survive between birth and death. The oldest woman in the world lived to be over 122 years old, so the maximum human lifespan of 120 is often accepted by actuaries and others who work in the longevity field. (Dong et al. 2016)
The challenge for all of us is to amass enough savings to serve as a source of retirement income for the contingency of our longevity. If we target only our life expectancy as a goal to save towards, we may be unpleasantly surprised should we be fortunate enough to have a lower mortality rate than most of our age group. You may not aspire to be a centenarian, but it may be a good way to approach your retirement finances. This is because you may be an outlier in the statistical data of your demographic group.
We rely on actuaries to work behind the scenes to design and update longevity calculators. Actuaries are women and men who calculate life expectancy and work in the insurance industry. Their expertise, however, is using mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to assess the risk of events.
Actuaries allow the insurance industry and other fields to minimize the cost of various risks. If you know a young person who may be interested in this occupation have them visit Actuaries : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) and A Day in the Life of an Actuary (investopedia.com) to learn more.
Longevity Calculators
Here are several longevity calculators for your consideration.
The Actuaries Longevity Illustrator, developed by the American Academy of Actuaries and Society of Actuaries, only requires a few personal data questions. It shows the odds of living to various ages. It includes the ability to include input about a life partner or spouse. The site’s Terms and Conditions should answer any questions you have about personal data safety.
If you want a longevity calculator that provides a customized life expectancy base on over 400,000 National Institute of Health samples, go to How Long Will I Live? – Life Expectancy Calculator (blueprintincome.com). Two professors from the Wharton School developed this calculator, which accounts for more detailed results about your future as it has a short quiz about your lifestyle, weight, height, alcohol usage, etc. No nonpublic data is collected for safety reasons, according to correspondence with the site. (Full disclosure: the author of this article is a non-distinguished graduate of the Wharton School)
Livingto100.com was developed by Dr. Thomas Perls, who wrote the excellent book Living to 100. His calculator is very personalized, asking numerous questions about your health, nutrition, lifestyle, and family history. The calculator site has a disclaimer when you go to the About link on the site’s heading banner.
The Northwest Mutual calculator will ask you 13 questions about your lifestyle and family history. What is unique about this calculator is that each answer to the questions affects your age, and you can witness the progression of the forecast as you enter data.
Here are some of the key data points it asks for:
- Age & Gender: Your current age and gender.
- Height & Weight: To calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI).
- Family History: Information about cardiovascular problems in your family.
- Blood Pressure: Your blood pressure status and whether it’s under control.
- Stress Levels: How you handle stress in your daily life.
- Exercise Habits: Your level of physical activity.
- Diet: Your eating habits, particularly your intake of fruits, vegetables, and processed foods.
- Seatbelt Usage: Whether you routinely use your seatbelts.
Conclusion
My intent is sharing these calculators is to provide you several safe quick online ways to assess your longevity. All of these are simple tools to start you thinking how long you may live according to statistical databases.
I wish each of you additional years beyond any computations from any of the calculators. I hope this article may prompt you to invest more for your retirement.
