Catching the $15 trillion longevity wave

It could carry us to a smarter, greener future

Dick Samson, EraNova Institute Director

Published in

EraNova Institute

4 min readNov 20, 2018

A special report from EraNova Institute, home of the Smart Green Deal™

Millions of us are living longer. We’re caught in an unprecedented longevity wave. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on how we ride the wave.

If we ride it carelessly, wipe out is likely. But if we find the right balance, we may shoot ahead toward sunny shores.

The longevity economy may be a $15 trillion goldmine, according to this article in Forbes. It’s by Andy Sieg, managing director of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Great, but greed and waste could lead us astray. We need to address the market in a double-green way — good for the pocketbook and good for the planet.

We alerted corporate stakeholders of this opportunity in a white paper a few years ago. It was featured in the December, 2011, issues of National Underwriter and ThinkAdvisor, the insurance and financial industry journals.

Here’s a link to the ThinkAdvisor version (National Underwriter Life & Health is no longer in print.):

Riding the Life Extension Wave | ThinkAdvisor

Failure to plan Adequately for the long-term care (LTC) needs of our longer-living population is putting more than just…

www.thinkadvisor.com

The white paper contains additional information, illustrations, and references. (You can read it or download it below.)

Three constituencies stand to benefit greatly:

Aging citizens: They can avoid billions in unnecessary care-related expenses and losses.
Governments (national, regional and local): They can save billions by making care less necessary and by helping citizens provide for their own care.
Insurance carriers: They can take in billions by increasing market penetration and by taming excessive, mounting care claims.

Another constituency also stands to benefit greatly: providers of anything that impacts one’s healthy, productive lifespan or quality of life. That’s potentially everything that everybody in every business or calling provides.

The biggest part of the financial gain may not be in savings or consumer spending, but in vastly increased lifetime productivity.

Incalculable wealth could from from extending and enhancing the peak-productive years.

Imagine a brighter, stronger, longer-living workforce gainfully employed for 5, 10 or 20 extra years!
Imagine the added trillions they might pump into our global coffers!

It stands to reason. During their period of contribution beyond age 60, our new “super seniors” may possess the same brains and stamina as they did at age 30 or 40. Plus they could deliver an invaluable extra: new reserves of knowledge and wisdom earned only through long years of experience.

Their later-life contributions could have astonishing, planet-changing economic and social value for us all. The world could be on the verge of an unprecedented golden age.

Here’s the white paper:

If you’d like to download it, click this link: Avoiding the Long-Term Care Wipeout by Riding the Life Extension Wave

NOTE: The white paper focuses on the United States, but the principles apply to all nations. The white paper also focuses on senior care, but the applications are universal. And, the white paper needs to be updated and expanded; and new guidance needs to be developed.

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The actual goldmine may be much larger than the $15 trillion cited in the Forbes article!

That estimate appears to assume “business as usual” in human behavior. Everyone will keep on living and declining pretty much as they do now.

But a global “healthy longevity” campaign shows signs of emerging. The idea is to help people not just age, but super-age. Not just get older as best they can, but stay “younger” longer (as today’s “superagers” already do)?

A mature “super-aging” could help billions of us really shape up: