Live (Very) Old with Adequate Means: Which Role for Life Products?

The lengthening of life expectancy, especially at older ages since the mid-1970s, implies that the longevity risk is growing again with more uncertain pensions in the future and increasing costs of health and long-term care. This unprecedented change advocates for the development of life products purchased in retirement (annuity, ‘viager', reverse mortgage), which have a limited diffusion today. The proposed solutions involve renovated forms of these products – annuity or housing-based credit contracted on a fixed term, “pooled viager” or viage, long-term care reverse mortgage –, whose development would be further stimulated by an original reform of inheritance taxation. The intervention of the State to regulate these markets is essential, which requires particularly a codification of mortality tables and a specific protection of modest categories.