Glossary

Cost of income is the capital required today to produce one dollar of lifetime annual income, evaluated against a frictionless actuarial benchmark, and is the foundational analytical unit of the Longevity Standard framework. Why it matters Most retirement analysis starts with “what will my savings produce?” and works forward to an answer. Cost of income inverts the question to “what does the income I need cost to produce?” and works backward. The inversion is what makes lifetime i

Cost structure is the structural property of a claim that specifies how costs are charged and how transparent they are, with five possible values: none, explicit fee, embedded spread, crediting parameter drag, or guarantee charge. Why it matters Different lifetime income arrangements charge their costs in fundamentally different ways. Some are explicit and visible; others are embedded in pricing parameters that are difficult to inspect. The cost structure property names this diffe

Cost view is the Longevity Standard analytical frame that fixes a target level of lifetime annual income and compares the capital required to produce it across different arrangements. Why it matters If you know what income you need in retirement, the relevant question is what that income costs — not what your balance happens to produce. Cost view is the frame that asks the need-anchored question. How it works Cost view holds the income target constant and lets the required capi