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Prolong and Actuaries

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Prolong and Actuaries
Post by kenl511   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:26 pm

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What would the effect of Prolong be on both retirement systems and Life Insurance? Pensions for centuries? Term Insurance available for accidents but not for old age?

Also, less than the expected extension for First Generation Prolong has passed, how do they know how much it adds to life spans? Or is it estimated extension taken as "proven fact?"
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by saber964   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 12:54 pm

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kenl511 wrote:What would the effect of Prolong be on both retirement systems and Life Insurance? Pensions for centuries? Term Insurance available for accidents but not for old age?

Also, less than the expected extension for First Generation Prolong has passed, how do they know how much it adds to life spans? Or is it estimated extension taken as "proven fact?"



Probably extending out the pension system. Remember in the Honorverse a person could have multiple careers or take years long sabbaticals. IIRC they could also allow no forced retirement you work as long as you are able e.g. Jonas Adcock was still serving as fourth space Lord when he died in 1913 PD. Also prolong doesn't protect you from over indulgence and self abuse like Dimitri Young who died in his nineties.
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by Theemile   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:27 pm

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saber964 wrote:
kenl511 wrote:What would the effect of Prolong be on both retirement systems and Life Insurance? Pensions for centuries? Term Insurance available for accidents but not for old age?

Also, less than the expected extension for First Generation Prolong has passed, how do they know how much it adds to life spans? Or is it estimated extension taken as "proven fact?"



Probably extending out the pension system. Remember in the Honorverse a person could have multiple careers or take years long sabbaticals. IIRC they could also allow no forced retirement you work as long as you are able e.g. Jonas Adcock was still serving as fourth space Lord when he died in 1913 PD. Also prolong doesn't protect you from over indulgence and self abuse like Dimitri Young who died in his nineties.



I just had a strange thought, with lifespans of 300 years, "retirement bonds" could take 250 or so years to mature. Could you imagine if people gave children a few hundred dollars each birthday in such bonds? They would be worth vast fortunes when they retire...
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by Jonathan_S   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:57 pm

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kenl511 wrote:What would the effect of Prolong be on both retirement systems and Life Insurance? Pensions for centuries? Term Insurance available for accidents but not for old age?

Also, less than the expected extension for First Generation Prolong has passed, how do they know how much it adds to life spans? Or is it estimated extension taken as "proven fact?"
The good news, from an actuarial standpoint, is that the first gen prolong treatments had to be applied so young that virtually none of the recipients would already own lifetime annuities or defined payment retirement instruments.

Imagine selling those based on an average 120 year lifespan and then as people approached that point suddenly having all of them get an extra 200 years! Every pension fund or annuity seller would instantly go bankrupt!

But as it was they'd mostly have time to stop sales of lifetime annuities on children who had received, or were eligible to receive, prolong until they'd been able to work out new actuarial tables.


Though I guess even the remaining uncertainty about actual maximum lifespan might just have killed off that kind of financial vehicle. Far safer to go with defined contribution, or fixed length annuities, where you aren't gambling against the prolong and related medical technology adding yet another noticeable life extension and extending your average payout period to the point it breaks your models.
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by Silverwall   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:57 pm

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This raises the prospect of how easy it is to meaningfully save. If you have 200 year inflation like we do now saving and investment becomes a joke and you are better off spending most of your cash until close to your projected retirement age to avoid your nest egg being inflated into ovlivion.

Even if you invest the odds are good that one of the market crashes that have happened every 50ish years or so will wipe out your nest egg.

Since 1815 there has been several thousand percent inflation and 5-6 major market meltdowns, not all of which are tied to wars.

The other question that is mainly unaddressed by RFC is how long does prolong leave you in a state of elderly feebleness and mental slowness? does it just extend the whole lifespan evenly or is the middle-age period expanded to be much larger just as we have seen in the 20th centuary?
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by dscott8   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:23 pm

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Silverwall wrote:The other question that is mainly unaddressed by RFC is how long does prolong leave you in a state of elderly feebleness and mental slowness? does it just extend the whole lifespan evenly or is the middle-age period expanded to be much larger just as we have seen in the 20th centuary?


From vaguely remembered textev, prolong slows aging down from around the onset of puberty. I do not recall any truly elderly prolong recipients in the saga, but if the post-prolong pattern is an evenly proportioned extension of lifespan, I suspect the elder years will be eased by medical advances in treating typical problems of aging, like arthritis, phlebitis & Alzheimer's.
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by kzt   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:35 pm

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dscott8 wrote:From vaguely remembered textev, prolong slows aging down from around the onset of puberty. I do not recall any truly elderly prolong recipients in the saga, but if the post-prolong pattern is an evenly proportioned extension of lifespan, I suspect the elder years will be eased by medical advances in treating typical problems of aging, like arthritis, phlebitis & Alzheimer's.

By the time the first people with 3rd gen enter old age nobody still working will have treated anyone old, because there won't have been any for over a hundred years.
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by cthia   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:40 pm

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Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by Brigade XO   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:29 pm

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Business and everybody else will eventualy adapt to the changes and work something out. The contracts that were written before people have the chance to double or triple the earlier lifespans will become the stuff of legend as a few people look forward to 150+ years of guarnateed income-until the funding fails because of changes in investment values.
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Re: Prolong and Actuaries
Post by Daryl   » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:36 pm

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I'm a real life example, in that my main superannuation pension is from a now closed fund. It is basically 40% of my final annual salary indexed on the CPI for life, plus return of my contributions plus interest. Made sense when people retired at 65, then died at 70. Only 5 years to pay out, but now could be 30+ years. They closed it off and offered us a new one that was promoted as less rigid, and we could take it as a lump sum rather than a pension. But on analysis was nowhere near as good. If we develop prolong I'll bankrupt them.
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