Longevity: how advisory is changing across clients, products and distribution

Interview by Alessandro Cicognani with Maurizio Primanni for the April 2026 edition of The Signal magazine

The demographic phenomenon of longevity is changing financial advisory. In Italy, people over 65 number about 14 million, equal to more than 23% of the population, and by 2070 those over 90 will amount to about 2.2 million. At the same time, life expectancy is increasing: today an Italian who reaches the age of 65 can expect to live about 21 more years (source: Istat).

For this reason, the new theme in wealth management is longevity risk, that is, the risk of not having adequate financial resources in relation to one’s lifestyle in the third and fourth stages of life, which is intertwined with another relevant issue: physical non-self-sufficiency. According to estimates, by 2030 the number of non-self-sufficient people in Italy could exceed five million. A figure that must be taken into account in the current context of a lighter public welfare system.

It should also not be forgotten that in Italy financial wealth is now highly concentrated, with more than 60% held by people over 55 (Bank of Italy data). This situation opens the door to a new world, where the longevity economy is becoming one of the main drivers in the evolution of financial advisory.

We discuss this with Maurizio Primanni, CEO of Gruppo Excellence, to understand how this phenomenon is transforming the sector in three areas: clients, products and distribution.

Primanni, let us start with clients. What really changes with longevity?
Today we need to think in terms of a much longer life span, which includes not only the third age but also the fourth age.

For the retail client, this means facing two concrete questions: how to avoid running out of financial resources in the last years of life and how to manage possible care or health needs. Solutions, therefore, no longer concern investments alone, but rather a set of complementary tools: pensions, life annuities, health coverage, long term care products for non-self-sufficiency and wealth management in the retirement phase allows the balancing of wealth accumulation and decumulation in order to meet life needs. For private clients, the issue broadens further: the objective is not to avoid running out of financial resources, but rather to plan an effective generational transfer of wealth which, at the same time, allows clients to maintain their standard of living and pursue fulfilling projects even in the third and fourth stages of life.

Longevity, therefore, is not only a financial issue
Exactly. It is also a social and insurance issue, which presents new challenges, but also opportunities. Clients can live longer and want to do so while continuing to be active and autonomous. For this reason, planning solutions increasingly include elements linked to prevention and quality of life, such as healthcare prevention programmes, telemedicine services or access to networks of affiliated healthcare facilities. It is not only a matter of insuring a risk, but of building a protection system that helps people live longevity well.

Let us move on to products. What changes for insurance companies and asset managers?
With increasing longevity, new and more complex needs are emerging, requiring increasingly integrated solutions. This is a major opportunity. The trend, as we have said, is to combine financial products with services related to health and care. For example, more and more often companies are developing partnerships with healthcare groups or networks of medical facilities. The objective is to build holistic solutions capable of integrating finance, protection, care and health throughout the entire life cycle of the client.

And on the distribution side, how is the role of the financial advisor changing?
For a long time, longevity was interpreted above all as an issue of supplementary pension provision, with limited results also because of the still significant weight of public pensions in our country. Today, however, a new and broader perspective is emerging. The financial advisor already has a fiduciary relationship with the client and can therefore also address complex issues: from retirement planning to wealth management in the decumulation phase, through to health protection and succession planning.

The advisor has the opportunity to help the client build an integrated plan, in which investments, insurance protection and care services form part of an overall strategy.

In this process, what role can artificial intelligence play?
AI solutions make it possible to analyse large amounts of data, improve client profiling and build more accurate simulations.

In longevity advisory, AI enables the advisor to make a difference: it reduces operational effort, improves data analysis and overall makes commercial activity more efficient.