Households that postpone claiming Social Security benefits are, in effect, making additional purchases of the Social Security annuity and acquiring valuable longevity insurance. This paper investigates the impact of plausible variations of subjective mortality beliefs on the value of delayed...

Although annuities provide longevity insurance that should, in theory, be attractive to risk-averse households facing an uncertain lifespan, rates of voluntary annuitization remain extremely low. We evaluate a proposed annuity product, the Advanced Life Deferred Annuity, an annuity purchased at...

Households that delay claiming Social Security are, in effect, making additional purchases of the Social Security annuity. Theoretical calculations show the delayed claiming is optimal, even for high mortality households. Yet most claim well before the theoretically optimal age. This paper...