IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jrisks/v13y2025i7p122-d1688614.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Breaking the Mortality Curve: Investment-Driven Acceleration in Life Expectancy and Insurance Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • David M. Dror

    (Health Investment and Financing, 1203 Geneva, Switzerland
    Formerly address: School of Health Policy & Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738 Rotterdam, The Netherlands.)

Abstract

Capital investment in longevity science—research targeting the biological processes of aging through interventions like cellular reprogramming, AI-driven drug discovery, and biological age monitoring—may create significant divergence between traditional actuarial projections and emerging mortality improvements. This paper examines how accelerating investment in life extension technologies affects mortality improvement trajectories beyond conventional actuarial assumptions, building on the comprehensive investment landscape analysis documented in “Investors in Longevity” supported by venture capital databases, industry reports, and regulatory filings. We introduce an Investment-Adjusted Mortality Model (IAMM) that incorporates capital allocation trends as leading indicators of mortality improvement acceleration. Under high-investment scenarios (annual funding of USD 15+ billion in longevity technologies), current insurance products may significantly underestimate longevity risk, creating potential solvency challenges. Our statistical analysis demonstrates that investment-driven mortality improvements—actual reductions in death rates resulting from new anti-aging interventions—could exceed traditional projections by 18–31% by 2040. We validate our model by backtesting historical data, showing improved predictive performance (35% reduction in MAPE) compared to traditional Lee–Carter approaches during periods of significant medical technology advancement. Based on these findings, we propose modified insurance structures, including dynamic mortality-linked products and biological age underwriting, quantifying their effectiveness in reducing longevity risk exposure by 42–67%. These results suggest the need for actuarial science to incorporate investment dynamics in response to the changing longevity investment environment detailed in “Investors in Longevity”. The framework presented provides both theoretically grounded and empirically tested tools for incorporating investment dynamics into mortality projections and insurance product design, addressing gaps in current risk management approaches for long-term mortality exposure.

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Dror, 2025. "Breaking the Mortality Curve: Investment-Driven Acceleration in Life Expectancy and Insurance Innovation," Risks, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-20, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:13:y:2025:i:7:p:122-:d:1688614
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/13/7/122/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/13/7/122/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Gompers & Josh Lerner, 2001. "The Venture Capital Revolution," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 145-168, Spring.
    2. David Atance & Josep Lledó & Eliseo Navarro, 2025. "Modelling and Forecasting Mortality Rates for a Life Insurance Portfolio," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(1), pages 1-25, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prelipcean, Gabriela & Boscoianu, Mircea, 2019. "Aspect Regarding the Design of Active Strategies for Venture Capital Financing – the Flexible Adjustment for Romania as a Frontier Capital Market," Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference (2019), Rovinj, Croatia, in: Proceedings of the ENTRENOVA - ENTerprise REsearch InNOVAtion Conference, Rovinj, Croatia, 12-14 September 2019, pages 187-196, IRENET - Society for Advancing Innovation and Research in Economy, Zagreb.
    2. Yingkai Li & Boli Xu, 2024. "Information Acquisition Towards Unanimous Consent," Papers 2405.18521, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2025.
    3. Carolin Bock & Maximilian Schmidt, 2015. "Should I stay, or should I go? – How fund dynamics influence venture capital exit decisions," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 68-82, November.
    4. Mikaela Backman & Charlie Karlsson, 2016. "Determinants of self-employment among commuters and non-commuters," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 755-774, November.
    5. Gerard Llobet & Javier Suarez, 2010. "Entrepreneurial Innovation, Patent Protection and Industry Dynamics," Working Papers wp2010_1001, CEMFI.
    6. Demougin, Dominique M. & Fabel, Oliver, 2006. "The division of ownership in new ventures," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2006-047, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    7. Johannes Hörner & Larry Samuelson, 2013. "Incentives for experimenting agents," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 44(4), pages 632-663, December.
    8. Valérie Revest & Alessandro Sapio, 2012. "Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 179-205, July.
    9. Fabio Bertoni & María Ferrer & José Martí, 2013. "The different roles played by venture capital and private equity investors on the investment activity of their portfolio firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 607-633, April.
    10. Jarunee Wonglimpiyarat, 2010. "Commercialization strategies of technology: lessons from Silicon Valley," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 225-236, April.
    11. Laeven, Luc & Popov, Alexander, 2023. "Carbon taxes and the geography of fossil lending," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    12. Valérie Revest & Alessandro Sapio, 2016. "Graduation and sell-out strategies in the Alternative Investment Market," Discussion Papers 4_2016, CRISEI, University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    13. Rodrigues Brás Gonçalo & Soukiazis Elias, 2019. "The Determinants of Entrepreneurship at the Country Level: A Panel Data Approach," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-17, October.
    14. Ansgar Belke & Rainer Fehn & Neil Foster, 2001. "Venture Capital Investment and Labor Market Performance: A Panel Data Analysis," Diskussionspapiere aus dem Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Hohenheim 197/2001, Department of Economics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
    15. Y. Sekou Bermiss & Benjamin L. Hallen & Rory McDonald & Emily C. Pahnke, 2017. "Entrepreneurial beacons: The Yale endowment, run‐ups, and the growth of venture capital," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 545-565, March.
    16. Fatima Shuwaikh & Souad Brinette & Sabrina Khemiri & Rita Grego De Castro, 2024. "Venture capital activities under uncertainty: US and UK investors behavior," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 334(1), pages 885-917, March.
    17. Hong Joo Lee, 2019. "What Factors Are Necessary for Sustaining Entrepreneurship?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, May.
    18. Doris Kwon & Olav Sorenson, 2023. "The Silicon Valley Syndrome," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 344-368, March.
    19. M. Knockaert & T. Vanacker, 2011. "The Association between Venture Capitalists Selection and Value Adding Behavior: Evidence from Early Stage High Tech Venture Capitalists," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/741, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    20. Hamilton, Laura T. & Daniels, Heather & Smith, Christian Michael & Eaton, Charlie, 2022. "The Private Side of Public Universities: Third-party providers and platform capitalism," University of California at Berkeley, Center for Studies in Higher Education qt7p0114s8, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:13:y:2025:i:7:p:122-:d:1688614. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.