A scale
Rich countries might have started getting all of the life extension power available from ordinary health care and wellness programs.
COVID-19 might have left many people with post-viral effects that will eventually shorten their lives.
And the new GLP-1 agonist weight-loss drugs could help some retirement savers live a lot longer.
Executives from Reinsurance Group of America talked about the potential effects of drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro last week, during a conference call the company held with securities analysts.
"We've done some significant modeling and analysis, and we continue to believe that anti-obesity medications, including GLP-1s, will have a meaningful benefit on population-level mortality," Jonathan Porter, RGA's global chief risk officer, told the analysts.
"We haven't made any material changes to our assumptions due to anti-obesity medications, but the benefits from these medications have increased our confidence that our existing mortality improvement assumptions will be realized."
Swiss Re has predicted that the drugs will lead to a big reduction in U.S. mortality, and RGA agrees with Swiss Re's forecast, Porter said.
What it means: If Porter, RGA and Swiss Re are correct, the risk that affluent retirement savers who take the new weight-loss drugs will live past age 90 could be much higher than they expect.
The earnings: RGA held the conference call to go over earnings for the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30.
The company, which streamed the call live on the web and posted a recording on its website, reported $255 million in net income for the quarter on $6.2 billion in revenue, up from $156 million in net income on $5.7 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2024.
Credit: Adobe Stock
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