Many Years In Which To Have Many Ailments

Bad news for the life-insurance business: Americans expect to live nearly forever. The chart below, excerpting a poll commissioned by Royal Philips Electronics, tells the tale. As you can see, just 10 percent of adults believe they’ll die before making it past 70 (leaving aside the 9 percent who said they don’t know how long they’ll last); one in five expect to live beyond 90. People in the 66-75 bracket are just as likely as those 18-25 to think they’ll make it past 100 (4 percent of each cohort).