Longevity is a critical component of retirement planning that is often overlooked. Instead of ignoring how changes in life expectancy affect the funds needed for retirement, bring it to the forefront of conversations with clients. A calculator may help estimate how long a client may live—and how that impacts retirement income needs. Longevity also takes into account factors such as family history, lifestyle choices, diet and exercise, among others. While advisors are not medical professionals, and our calculator is not meant to diagnose or predict exact life expectancy, considering how long retirement income may need to last is a key planning factor.
Our longevity calculator is an online tool that estimates an individual's potential lifespan by analyzing personal data against large-scale actuarial data and health studies.
Use Our Longevity and Life Expectancy Calculator
Estimate how long your client may live based on key factors—and use that insight to guide income planning. Our longevity calculator offers a simple starting point that helps bring clarity to one of the biggest unknowns in retirement.
Why Longevity Matters More Than Most Clients Expect
Retirement isn’t a fixed timeline. It’s an unknown duration—and that uncertainty has real implications for every financial decision.
Living longer increases the risk of outliving income
Overestimating can result in overly conservative decisions today
Looking to the future, ongoing improvements in healthcare and living conditions are expected to further increase life expectancy. Improved working conditions, reduced smoking rates, and advances in healthcare have already contributed to longer lifespans from generation to generation.
This is where advisors bring real value—turning uncertainty into a plan clients can understand and rely on.
Turning Longevity Into a Real Plan
A longevity estimate is only useful if it leads to better decisions. Here’s how to apply it in conversations with clients:
Planning horizon
Use longevity estimates to frame how long income needs to last, not just to life expectancy, but through a longer planning window. While advisors are not privy to their clients' medical information, it’s important to encourage them to think candidly about their circumstances with a realistic time horizon. How does this information impact client goals and risk tolerance?
Income strategy
Balance different income sources, including guaranteed income and portfolio withdrawals, to support both flexibility and stability.
Risk alignment
Longer lifespans increase exposure to market risk, inflationary pressures and sequence-of-returns risk. Align strategies accordingly.
Client conversations
Longevity can be an uncomfortable topic. Framing it clearly and constructively helps clients focus on outcomes—not uncertainty. Advisors should strive to focus the conversation on planning to maintain the clients’ desired lifestyle for as long as they live. Consider grounding the conversation positively, saying something like, “Living longer is a great outcome, let’s talk about how your plan can keep up with your lifestyle.”
Where Planning can Fall Short
Even experienced clients can overlook key risks when thinking about how long retirement may last. Some common pitfalls to watch out for include:
Planning to average life expectancy instead of planning for longer outcomes
Ignoring the likelihood that one spouse may live significantly longer
Underestimating healthcare and long-term care needs
Relying too heavily on market-based income alone
Avoiding the conversation altogether
Small assumptions can have a big impact over time. Building a plan that removes some uncertainty while remaining flexible to future circumstances is the most important piece of mitigating longevity risk.
Planning for Income That Lasts
Longevity risk isn’t something advisors or clients can directly control, but it can be planned for.
Lifetime income can help hedge against outliving assets
Predictable income simplifies decision-making in retirement
Aligning guaranteed income with essential expenses can create a more stable foundation
Frequently Asked Questions About Life Expectancy
Life expectancy calculators are typically developed by universities and supported by research. They provide estimates based on population data and probabilities, offering probabilistic averages rather than guaranteed predictions. They’re useful for planning, but individual outcomes will always vary.
In most cases, yes. Age is one of the best predictors of longevity, and women generally live longer than men. Planning beyond average life expectancy helps account for longevity risk and reduces the chance of outliving income. Estimates from calculators are more accurate for groups than for individuals.
The longer a client lives, the longer their income needs to last. This increases the importance of sustainable withdrawal strategies and guaranteed income sources. Consider taking clients through our three-step retirement income calculator as a supplement to the longevity calculator.
Many people see a million dollars as a magic number in retirement. But depending on where you live, it may not last as long as you think. Here’s how many years $1 million in retirement savings plus Social Security benefits stretch for a single person in each state. For couples, the nest egg will be depleted sooner.
Top 10 states where the money lasts less than 20 years2
Sources
1GOBankingRates sourced cost-of-living indexes from Missouri’s Economic and Research Information Center, including the grocery, healthcare, housing, utilities, transportation and miscellaneous cost-of-living indexes. Using the cost-of-living indexes and the national average expenditure costs for retired residents, as sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the average expenditure cost for each location was calculated. Assuming a retirement savings of $1 million, as well as the cost-of-living data, the drawdown time was calculated for each state. Data was collected on and is up to date as of Jan. 6, 2025
2CFA Institute, “100 Years and Counting: The Financial Reality of Extended Longevity,” June 10, 2025.