When I talk to clients about today’s permanent products and the trend away from the old guarantees to age 100 and toward guarantees of 120+, I am often chuckled at. Uinversal life policies with no lapse guarantees to 120 or 130 may be more well thought out than a lot of people give them credit for.

I was just reviewing an article discussing the increasing number of centenarians in the country. It seems that in 1990 there were about 20,000 people over 100. In 2000 that had grown to 50,000 and by 2050 it is estimated that it will explode to some 800,000.

The article is set up as kind of a moving educational tool. One part of the graphic speaks to life expectancies in different parts of the country. Perhaps no surprise in this is that Mississippi has the lowest life expectancy in the country. I have touched on statistics about Mississippi before that have shown that it leads the country in obesity and type 2 diabetes percentages of the population.

One that surprised me was the state with the longest longevity being Minnesota. I know for a fact that I would likely freeze to death at a much earlier age living in a state that gets so cold.

The other part of the graphic is an interesting historical view of the leading causes of death and how they’ve changed over the past 100 years.

Bottom line. While people may roll their eyes at the idea of life insurance that is guaranteed to 120 or longer, simply because so far no one has lived that long at least since biblical times, choosing a policy with a guarantee to just 100 is no longer a prudent move.