Today the second issue of Gentse Economische Inzichten (Ghent University Economic Insights) is published. Gentse Economische Inzichten is a forum for the broad societal dissemination of research findings and policy recommendations by professors of the Department of Economics of Ghent University. Given that this forum focusses on the Flemish community, the Gentse Economische Inzichten are published in Dutch.

In this issue, based on recent scientific research, we discuss how an individual can protect himself/herself against the risk and the costs of a very long life. We also formulate concrete policy recommendations that help individuals to achieve this.

These are the most important insights:

1. Becoming financially healthy over 90 is very complex because we don't know how long we will live. Sharing this risk with others makes the challenge easier than with an individual approach (like working longer and/or saving more).
2. Win-for-Life products (annuity, tontine, reverse mortgage) can take away the financial worries of longevity.
3. Making the choice to take out hospitalization insurance individually or through the employer fiscally neutral and making it possible to build up a higher reserve allows people to protect themselves more efficiently against unexpected health costs.
4. We can enable people to make better pension decisions by including the psychology behind how and why people make choices in tools such as mypension.be

Read the full second issue of Gentse Economische Inzichten