Abstract

The Spanish insurance market only offers annuities which are priced by considering mortality tables of the general population. Thus, personal tax incentives for buying voluntary annuities that complement the public retirement pension represent a comparative disadvantage for retirees with reduced life expectancy, since they can only benefit from them at unfair prices. In Spain, as in many other countries, the so-called enhanced annuities are not marketed. In addition to traditional risk factors of age and sex (in countries where the latter is allowed), enhanced annuities are priced by considering, at the time of hiring them, other aspects related to the health status and lifestyle of the person to be insured. Based on these considerations, this paper aims to determine the optimal strategy that, considering the probabilities of death adjusted to their risk factors and their personal taxation, allows a retiree with reduced life expectancy to transfer their longevity risk by acquiring a private annuity. Moreover, the results obtained are compared with those corresponding to an annuitant with a standard life expectancy and with those that the retiree would obtain if they could subscribe an actuarially fair annuity, that is, an enhanced annuity.