Life Insurance - Mortality Issues ?
When faced with designing a life insurance portfolio as well as for any financial planning, an important factor is estimating your life expectancy. This is a guessing game such as science. There are a number of resources, tables and web sites with simple to complex calculators, available for this purpose. Please keep in mind that, the more variables you introduce the greater the likelihood that your estimate will be wrong.
A good starting point is the table issued by the US Government, for use by life insurance companies in determining a basis for life insurance premiums. This table is updated every few years and is called the Commissioners Standard Ordinary Mortality Table.
The following are some of the many factors that can impact your life expectancy:
Gender- males generally have shorter life expectancies than females.
Tobacco Use- if you use tobacco, your life expectancy will be shorter than for those who don’t use tobacco. Smoking will especially shorten your life expectancy.
Alcohol use- excessive alcohol drinking can reduce your life expectancy.
Driving- unsafe driving indicates greater risks of accidents and death and will therefore reduce your life expectancy.
Blood pressure- especially uncontrolled high blood pressure will reduce life expectancy.
Family medical history- if a parent or sibling has had a history of heart disease, cancer, diabetes or high blood pressure prior to age 60 then life expectancy may be lower and is a factor though it is hard to measure.
A good resource is the life tables available from the US Department of Health and Human Services- Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Annually, they publish a life expectancy table on their web site.
A search on any internet search engine will find a multitude of sites and calculators on the web. Almost everyone will give you a different estimate. Therefore, in doing your planning, the best option will typically be one you best understand and makes the most sense to you in every way. Possessing life insurance will be useful to your family when they are mostly in need of it.
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