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The Longevity Disconnect: It’s Time to Lead Change

Author

Bryan Pinsky
President of Individual Retirement and Life Insurance
Corebridge Financial

February 2026

Does the idea of living to 100 sound exciting? There are many reasons it should.

One hundred different years for meaningful moments with family and friends. Ten separate decades to discover something new and witness something incredible. And during what could be a long retirement, plenty of time for new adventures, second acts, and chances to relax and unwind.

At Corebridge Financial, we have been researching how people feel about and prepare for their potential longevity, using the possibility of a 100-year life as our starting point.

We selected this milestone because it clearly — and dramatically — leads to the idea that today’s and tomorrow’s retirees could easily spend three decades or more in retirement. Not everyone will reach such an advanced age, but it is imperative that Americans plan for the possibility of reaching 90, 95 or even 100.  

Living longer can offer more opportunities to experience life as we want, but it also can raise real concerns, such as worries about maintaining physical and cognitive health, financial security and quality of life. These challenges can grow over time and begin to overshadow the benefits of longevity.

At the center of this is the need for a strategic financial plan that matches what individuals want for their retirement while also ensuring they can address the risks of longevity.

Our recent study, Living and Funding Longer Lives, finds that many Americans are not adjusting their retirement expectations to match their longevity goals. It is critical for our industry to help them make this connection and adjust their planning for retirement accordingly.

The Longevity–Retirement Disconnect

Just over half of nonretired Americans (51%) believe it’s possible they could live to be 100 — and say they want to. Those who want to reach the century mark say the top benefits of achieving this age would be continued meaningful relationships with family and friends (76%), more time to explore and have new experiences (64%), witnessing new discoveries and watching the world evolve (64%), and enjoying more leisure time in retirement (54%).

While our findings reveal a positive outlook about longevity, they also show these expectations are not being carried over to retirement planning assumptions, including the age at which people plan to retire and how many years they expect retirement to last:  

  • 51% think they could live to 100
  • 39% plan to retire by age 64, and another 41% by age 69
  • Yet 50% are planning for only 20 years or fewer in retirement

Figure 1. Longevity and Retirement Expectations

This math does not work, as increasing longevity means retirements could last upward of three decades or more.  

Improving Awareness

At Corebridge, we believe great things happen when people take action. We bring that same mindset to our longevity research — offering action steps for individuals, financial professionals and employers to help build a foundation for fully lived, financially secure lives.

The disconnect identified above presents another opportunity for action — this time for our industry. Together, we can provide greater education and more resources to improve the general understanding of longevity and how people can plan for and reduce longevity risk. That begins with making the idea of living a very long life less theoretical and more of a real possibility.

We can encourage more individuals not just to rightsize the number of decades they should expect in their retirement but also to rethink what retirement can and should be.

Protected Lifetime Income

We also can help Americans to improve their familiarity with strategies and solutions to protect their financial future, no matter how long they live. As part of that, we can continue to advocate for income that cannot be outlived.

Our industry has made a concerted effort to explain the value of annuities in simple, everyday terms and to raise annuity awareness. Through this, consumers have become increasingly aware of the importance of protected lifetime income for retirement, but there’s still more work to be done.

We are in a new era, and many Americans recognize that responsibility for their retirement rests on their shoulders, making education critical. As we continue through Peak 65 — the surge of Baby Boomers turning 65 between 2024 and 2027 — there is an even greater opportunity to encourage more people to include annuities in a diversified retirement portfolio.

Figure 2. Confidence in Retirement Preparedness

Highly confident
in ability to:   
Annuity owner
Nonowner
Save for retirement
60%
39%
Plan for a successful financial future
53%
36%
Manage retirement money to provide lifetime income
48%
35%
Pay for unexpected costs, such as a medical emergency
45%
34%
Cover healthcare costs throughout retirement
45%
31%
Cover long-term care services, if needed
40%
27%
Not outlive my money
33%
28%

 

Protected lifetime income not only can enhance retirement planning, but it also can boost retirement happiness. In our study, approximately 3 in 4 nonretired Americans say having guaranteed lifetime income they can’t outlive, in addition to Social Security, would positively affect their current level of happiness and have a positive impact on their ability to spend money on the things that make them happy.

We must continue to highlight the benefits of annuities and protected lifetime income, especially as the retirement conversation broadens from a focus on Baby Boomers to include Generation X, which is 65 million strong. As an industry, our efforts can help more Americans prepare to fully enjoy many decades in retirement with less worry and a greater sense of financial security.

 

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