Valuing the Longevity Insurance Acquired by Delayed Claiming of Social Security

Individuals can claim Social Security at any age from 62 to 70, although most claim at 62. We show that expected present value calculations substantially understate both the optimal claim age and the losses resulting from early claiming because they ignore the value of the additional longevity insurance acquired because of delay. Using numerical optimization techniques, we illustrate that the optimal claim age is between 67 and 70. We calculate that the amount by which benefits payable at suboptimal ages must be increased so that a household is indifferent between claiming at those ages and the optimal combination of ages can be as high as 19.0 percent.