The COVID-19 pandemic may have shortened older Americans' lives enough in 2020 to throw off life insurance, annuity and pension mortality forecasts.
An arm of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting, based on early data, that overall life expectancy at birth dropped by 1.5 years between 2019 and 2020, to 77.3 years.
Life expectancy for 65-year-old U.S. residents fell by 0.8 years, to 18.8 years.
The drop at age 65 was about the same for both men and for women.
The life expectancy drop for U.S. 65-year-olds appears to be the first year-over-year drop greater than 0.2 years since at least 1980, according to the new report and to CDC reports published in 2011, 2017 and March.
The largest life expectancy increases recorded between 1980 and the present amounted to 0.3 years.
Why Life Expectancy Matters
U.S. life insurers sell many policies to working-age people. Decreases in life expectancy at birth may hurt the performance of life insurance policies.
U.S. life insurers also sell many individual annuities, group annuities, and life insurance policies designed to help people over 65 generate income in retirement, or to pay for long-term care.
Decreasing life expectancy at age 65 may increase insurer spending on any death benefits those products offer, but it may cut insurer spending on retirement income benefits and on benefits used to pay for long-term care.
Decreasing life expectancy at age 65 also could cut U.S. federal government spending on Medicare and Social Security.
The overall life expectancy drop recorded in 2020 means that the average person who turned 65 in the United States last year might have a lifespan that's about 4% shorter than the lifespan of someone who turned 65 in 2019.
