10 replies to this topic

[reason]

The output of the actuarial community often demonstrates its members to be ahead of the curve when it comes to the near future of medicine and great uncertainty over coming trends in life expectancy. This is a time of very rapid progress in the underlying biotechnologies applicable to medical research, and also a time in which both the aging research community and broader medical community are beginning a sweep change in their approach to age-related disease. There is every reason to expect that the near future of human adult life expectancy will look nothing like the past fifty years of slow and fairly steady growth: once the research community begins to actually try to address the causes of aging through medicine, then all bets are off. A likely outcome, indeed the outcome I'd expect if repair-based strategies like the SENS research projects gain large-scale funding and support, is a large upward leap in life span with comparatively little advance warning.

Actuaries are, in theory at least, aware of all of this: it is their job to take account of uncertainty in their projections. Enormous sums of money flow through life insurance companies, pension funds, and other areas of business related to life span. There is thus an equally enormous incentive for these organizations and their allies to understand the state of progress in medicine. Having a solid grasp of the uncertainty of the future is necessary to these businesses, and for many years the actuarial community has been sounding the alarm on rising uncertainty in their projections. This is a direct result of the uncertainty inherent in medical development during a time of rapid progress and strategic upheaval in the research community. Comparatively small differences in funding or happenstance collaboration today could dramatically shift the timing of the future advent of practical rejuvenation treatments.

We all know that the average person in the street is surprisingly disinterested in living longer in good health, and perhaps even hostile to the concept. This is one of the challenges we face as advocates seeking greater support for research to bring an end to the suffering and frailty that presently accompanies old age. Are actuaries any more bold than the rest of the public when it comes to radical life extension through progress in medicine? Possibly not:

Longevity expectations in the pension fund, insurance, and employee benefits industries

Considerable progress has been made in many areas of biomedical science since the 1960s, suggesting likely increases in life expectancy and decreases in morbidity and mortality in the adult population. These changes may pose substantial risks to the pensions and benefits industries. While there is no significant statistical evidence demonstrating rapid decreases in mortality rates, there are conflicting opinions among demographers and biogerontologists on the biological limits of the human lifespan and trends in life expectancy.

We administered a survey of the International Employee Benefits Association (IEBA), a large, international industry group. Industry professionals employed by consulting (35%), insurance (24%), pension (14%), and other (27%) companies responded to 32 questions. Respondents showed reasonably conservative views on the future of longevity and retirement, including that for women. The respondents formed their personal longevity expectations based on their family history and, to a lesser degree, on the actuarial life tables. Most of the sample expressed no desire to life past age 100 years, even if the enabling technologies required to maintain a healthy youthful state were available, and only a few respondents in the sample expressed a desire to live for the maximum period (at least) offered by the survey question. The majority of the respondents would not undergo any invasive procedures, and only 56% of the respondents would opt for noninvasive therapies to extend their healthy lifespans to 150 years of age if these were available.

The results of this study strengthen the argument that the captains of these industries may not use the recent advances in biomedical sciences when forming their personal longevity expectations and engaging in corporate financial planning. Moreover, most of these decision makers do not even appear to show much interest in significantly extending their own longevity should such technologies become available. Considering the recent advances in all areas of biomedical science, the rapid convergence of information technology with biomedicine, and the propagation of these technologies into mainstream clinical and consumer markets, this appears shortsighted, if only from a business perspective. Quite simply, one could lose a lot of money - to the level of affecting the future of the global financial system - by failing to predict these trends correctly. All stakeholders, including pension fund providers, insurance companies, governments, and individuals, may benefit from accelerating biomedical advances and investing in projects that increase productive longevity, or at least from taking such research and development work into account when projecting mortality rates into the future.

View the full article at FightAging

[niner]

Hmm.  If the actuaries are that dumb, then maybe I should go buy an annuity before they clue in.  OTOH, there was some insurance company running ads quoting de Grey-- "The first person to live to 150 has already been born."    So there's a disconnect there.  Kind of weird that these ostensibly intelligent guys aren't even willing to accept a non-invasive treatment to make them live longer.  I think the question was incorrectly posed.  It should have been something like "Do you envision a day when you will wake up and say "today I want to get Alzheimers"?  of "Today I want to have a stroke"?  or "today I want to lose control of my bladder"?  I have a feeling that their answers would be more along the lines of "Umm... No."

[Kalliste]

I have been wondering if the insurance-industry might be a worthwhile target for SENS advocacy in our money rules all world of decisionmaking. They have a trillion dollar problem with this mountain of broken cells coming their way. Could they be made more aware of the possibility to do some comparatively (to trillion dollars) small investments in rejuvenation and use that to ward this problem of?
I have every reason to believe that they can weasel their way out of liability using outright bribe money to lawmakers, rewriting TOS and so on. But would it not be nice?

Edited by Cosmicalstorm, 07 February 2015 - 06:14 AM.

[AgeVivo]

the actuarial community has a gigantic tendency to reject radical life extension.

[niner]

There are three separate and distinct insurance communities here- the health insurers, who don't care how long we live, as long as we don't rack up large healthcare expenses, the life insurance community, who don't care about either lifespan or healthcare costs, but want us to die predictably, and finally, the pension and annuity community, who want us to die as soon as possible after we retire. Then there's the US Government, who is part of the first (Medicare) and third (Social Security) group, but not the second. Only the health insurers would like to see treatments for aging. The life insurers and pension guys, where all the actuaries are employed, would only be harmed by LE. Life insurers would be somewhat harmed because instead of dying on schedule, we would die much more randomly. That might not matter much, since the payouts wouldn't be any different, just delayed. The pension guys would really be screwed, because they would have to keep paying out for an extended period if people weren't dying.

If there is a major step-change in lifespan due to a breakthrough in LE treatments, it's likely that Congress would pass legislation rescuing the pension community.  They might even do something about Social Security, which would be further broken by such events.

[ceridwen]

The actuaries also die. Maybe they might want to stop aging for their own sakes

[Kalliste]

The actuaries also die. Maybe they might want to stop aging for their own sakes

Most people are not receptive to that argument.

[ceridwen]

Well I wouldn't think they'd all be the same.

[Mind]

If there is a major step-change in lifespan due to a breakthrough in LE treatments, it's likely that Congress would pass legislation rescuing the pension community.  They might even do something about Social Security, which would be further broken by such events.

 

"Rescue". Ha, ha. That gave me a good chuckle. CURRENT pension and social security obligations (in the U.S.) are unable too be met without debt-financing and/or credit expansion/money printing. No way these can be rescued.

 

If people start living way beyond 100, the current public retirement systems will probably have to change radically or be ended altogether. People (in ponzi-ish wealth transfer set-ups like the U.S.) shouldn't be expect to work 30 to 40 years and then live off of the backs other's for hundreds more.

 

Of course, the normal caveats of accelerating change apply.

Edited by Mind, 08 February 2015 - 04:11 PM.

[niner]

 

If there is a major step-change in lifespan due to a breakthrough in LE treatments, it's likely that Congress would pass legislation rescuing the pension community.  They might even do something about Social Security, which would be further broken by such events.

 

"Rescue". Ha, ha. That gave me a good chuckle. CURRENT pension and social security obligations (in the U.S.) are unable too be met without debt-financing and/or credit expansion/money printing. No way these can be rescued.

 

If people start living way beyond 100, the current public retirement systems will probably have to change radically or be ended altogether. People (in ponzi-ish wealth transfer set-ups like the U.S.) shouldn't be expect to work 30 to 40 years and then live off of the backs other's for hundreds more.

 

Of course, the normal caveats of accelerating change apply.

 

 

Social Security could be fixed easily.  It's not really in much trouble at all.  The problem is that everyone conflates SS and Medicare, but those are two completely different entities.  The expected costs from Medicare, which are huge, are the real problem here, and would hypothetically be reduced, perhaps massively, by LE technology.

 

I totally agree with you that people shouldn't be able to live off the backs of others for hundreds of years.  There are a couple ways we could fix that-- one is raising the retirement age an amount appropriate to new life expectancy.  The other is to replace SS with self-funded retirement plans and welfare.  The current SS program is a weird mix of bad retirement plan and welfare masquerading as a retirement plan.

[Mind]

 

 

If there is a major step-change in lifespan due to a breakthrough in LE treatments, it's likely that Congress would pass legislation rescuing the pension community.  They might even do something about Social Security, which would be further broken by such events.

 

"Rescue". Ha, ha. That gave me a good chuckle. CURRENT pension and social security obligations (in the U.S.) are unable too be met without debt-financing and/or credit expansion/money printing. No way these can be rescued.

 

If people start living way beyond 100, the current public retirement systems will probably have to change radically or be ended altogether. People (in ponzi-ish wealth transfer set-ups like the U.S.) shouldn't be expect to work 30 to 40 years and then live off of the backs other's for hundreds more.

 

Of course, the normal caveats of accelerating change apply.

 

 

Social Security could be fixed easily.  It's not really in much trouble at all.  The problem is that everyone conflates SS and Medicare, but those are two completely different entities.  The expected costs from Medicare, which are huge, are the real problem here, and would hypothetically be reduced, perhaps massively, by LE technology.

 

I totally agree with you that people shouldn't be able to live off the backs of others for hundreds of years.  There are a couple ways we could fix that-- one is raising the retirement age an amount appropriate to new life expectancy.  The other is to replace SS with self-funded retirement plans and welfare.  The current SS program is a weird mix of bad retirement plan and welfare masquerading as a retirement plan.

 

 

Of course SS can be rescued...just not Congress, lol. Means testing, raise taxes, etc... A few other countries which are much smarter and more adaptable than the U.S. have private/public blends. They mandate you save some money out of your paycheck. If for whatever reason people lose their nest egg (macro economic forces), then the government has a minimal back-up plan (welfare).