Financial firms ‘have a responsibility’ to support longevity innovation

New Manulife-WEF initiative aims to ‘move the needle’ on health, wealth, and quality of living outcomes for future generations in Asia. 

Last month, financial services giant Manulife announced a new longevity focused initiative with the World Economic Forum, with a focus on addressing the profound demographic shifts occurring across Asia. The “Innovating for Asia’s Demographic Future” challenge seeks to catalyze solutions that enable long-term financial resilience and well-being for individuals as they navigate increasingly multi-stage lives.

The initiative invites startups and innovators to submit solutions in three focus areas: multigenerational financial resilience, equitable healthy aging, and lifelong fulfillment. Selected winners receive access to networking events, partnerships, increased visibility, and a share of a CAD $200,000 prize pool.

Longevity.Technology: Financial services companies are showing a marked and growing interest in the longevity sector, and Manulife is no exception. Having already conducted a Prosperity in Longevity challenge last year, the company’s latest initiative is driven by the demographic reality that, by 2050, one in four people in Asia will be over 60 years old. Longer life expectancies and declining fertility rates are fundamentally altering social and economic structures in the region.

Asset management and insurance companies like Manulife recognize that these shifts create both challenges and opportunities: individuals will need to manage longer periods of retirement, face rising healthcare costs, and require new models of financial planning and support. To learn more about the project, we caught up with Manulife’s Global Chief Sustainability Officer, Sarah Chapman.

The financial sector’s interest in longevity is underpinned by the recognition that traditional products and models are no longer sufficient in the face of the demographic changes. Describing the situation in Asia as a “profound demographic shift”, Chapman says that the conventional life path followed by previous generations cannot be expected to continue.

“As countries in Asia adapt to these changes, people may no longer follow the traditional ‘school, work, retirement’ paradigm,” she says. “Instead, they may transition more frequently between learning, working, caring, and recreation.”

Chapman also cites recent data from Manulife’s Asia Care Survey, which revealed physical well-being is central to both financial and mental well-being for people across Asia, and that rising healthcare costs are a major concern, fueling anxiety about insufficient savings. 

“To help people live better for longer, we must fundamentally rethink traditional approaches to investments, insurance, health care, and workforce participation,” she says. “This challenge is an opportunity to drive investment in innovations that are truly going to move the needle to address demographic trends shaping the future of Asia in an effort to improve health, wealth, and quality of living outcomes for generations to come.”

Aging is a global issue

Of course, the issue of aging populations is not confined to Asia. By 2050, the global population over 65 is expected to double to 1.6 billion, bringing significant health and wealth challenges for the world.

“While people are living longer than in previous generations, it does not always equate to improved healthspan,” says Chapman. “One-fifth of an individual’s life, on average, is now expected to be lived with morbidity or in a state of illness.”

“As the population ages, factors like financial resilience and literacy, healthy aging, generational skill-building, social connection, and longevity inequalities across gender, race and class will be critical in ensuring a more sustainable, healthier future – and we must act with urgency.”

A recent report published by The Geneva Association, emphasizes that insurers are uniquely positioned to support individuals in managing longevity risks. The report highlights the need for insurers to innovate, offering flexible savings products, integrating health and wealth solutions, and promoting preventative healthcare to extend both healthspan and wealth span. Manulife’s Chapman concurs.

“We believe that as an insurer and asset manager, we have a responsibility to drive innovation that improves not just how long we live, but how well we live,” she says. “We see our role as a partner for progress, helping to drive positive outcomes by incentivizing and rewarding behavioral change, providing access to education, resources, and technology, and increasing opportunities to access nature and nutrition, which both underpin well-being.”

Creating a longevity innovation ecosystem

Innovating for Asia’s Demographic Future is part of a multi-year partnership between Manulife and UpLink, the WEF’s early-stage innovation platform, and is the second of three innovation challenges designed to help shape the future of, and investment in, longevity innovation. The challenges aim to create an ecosystem of innovators who can help accelerate solutions in longevity focused on finance, health and well-being.

The latest challenge seeks solutions that:

• Enhance multi-generational financial resilience, such as new financial products, services, or technologies that help individuals and families manage longer life spans and retirement periods.
• Promote equitable healthy aging, including innovations in healthcare delivery, preventative health, digital health tools, or community-based wellness programs that ensure older adults can age healthily and with dignity.
• Foster lifelong fulfillment, supporting ongoing personal growth, skill-building, and social engagement for people at all life stages.

“By supporting early-stage innovations and providing comprehensive solutions, we aim to help people live better for longer and secure their financial futures,” says Chapman. “This challenge is an opportunity to drive investment in innovations that are truly going to move the needle to address demographic trends shaping the future of Asia in an effort to improve health, wealth, and quality of living outcomes for generations to come.”

Manulife’s third longevity challenge, expected in 2026, will focus on a new theme.

Main image: WEF Centre for Financial and Monetary Systems Longevity Symposium ‘25 (Source: World Economic Forum); Photograph of Sarah Chapman (Source: Manulife)