Financial Innovation and the Hedging of Longevity Risk

Longevity risk is one of the remaining frontiers challenging modern financial markets and financial engineering. Financial innovation has yet to successfully master this very significant risk facing many countries internationally. For well over a hundred years this risk has been the domain of life insurance companies, reinsurance companies and actuaries. The aging population around the world drives the need for new products for managing longevity risk and new markets for hedging this risk. We consider how financial markets and financial product innovations can ideally be used to hedge longevity risk and also consider lessons from the insurance linked securities market that could be used to successfully fund this risk in financial markets.