On October 21, 2026, Barron's Advisor asked financial planners in its weekly Big Q feature how longer life spans and improving medicine are changing the life expectancy assumption at the center of a retirement plan. Bryce Keffeler, Managing Partner of Dew Wealth Management, LLC and co-author of Billionaire Wealth Strategies: The Fractional Family Office®, was the first planner profiled. He told Barron's that the firm now plans to age 100 for most of its clients.
From actuarial tables to a planning age of 100
Bryce described the method the firm used when it started building plans: take the number from the actuarial tables as a baseline, then adjust it up or down for family history. A client whose parents, aunts and uncles all lived long lives got a longer horizon; a client whose family rarely lived past 85 got a shorter one.
That baseline has moved. In Bryce's words: "We've now moved the mortality age for most of our clients to 100. That's now generally what we're planning for, and it's not because the data show it today; it has more to do with the impact of the GLP-1 drugs, peptides, the impact of [intensive health monitoring like] VO2 max, DEXA scans, quarterly blood draws."
He also pointed to how much life expectancy varies with income. A study published in JAMA in 2016 (Chetty et al., covering 2001 to 2014) found a gap of 14.6 years between men in the top 1% and the bottom 1% of the income distribution, and 10.1 years for women.
Why the planning horizon matters for business owners
For an entrepreneur, a large share of net worth often sits inside one company, and the income that replaces it after a sale or transition has to cover however many years follow. A longer assumed horizon changes how much that income needs to produce and for how long. We cover the income side of that question in our guide to passive income strategies for business owners.
Bryce's full answer appears in Barron's Advisor, the publication's advisor-facing title, in Wealth Advisors Are Ditching Mortality Tables and Planning for Clients to Live to 100 by Steve Garmhausen. The article is available to Barron's subscribers and registered wealth management professionals. More of Bryce's appearances are collected on his speaking and media page.
