Has Longevity Improvement Peaked?

If you're a 65 year old male, you have a 50% chance of living another twenty years -- a dramatic improvement over recent generations. But has that progress stopped?

One person in a position to know is Richard Harvey, group chief executive of Aviva PLC, the world's fifth-largest insuror. Aviva is a leader in providing "longevity insurance" -- insurance that covers the risk that an individual's conventional retirement savings run out before they die. Harvey says that dramatic gains in longevity may be over:

No one can predict precisely what a given generation's mortality will be. Today's 85-year-olds are doing incredibly well. But they are people who lived a relatively healthy lifestyle in many cases.

In the U.K.'s case, these are people who survived a war. They went through rationing and grew their own vegetables. Generally they walked a fair amount because they often didn't have cars. They are living well for a long time as a result of these things, and my father is one example. It's not quite as clear that the next generation will exhibit the same kind of longevity improvement.

... Generally as we get wealthier, we're not great at personal discipline. We're all human, and we tend to want to enjoy the fruits of a good life. We use transport more so we get less exercise. We have more food and drink than we need. In Western economies there are a decent number of medics who think that because of these trends we might be seeing the peak of longevity improvement. We're not betting on that outcome, but it might be true.

- Wall Street Journal link

Harvey urges people planning their retirement (and that's everyone ... right?) to consider reliability of income as a key financial goal.