Puts a bit of a perspective on risk in retirement.

[MoVert]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 111113.htm

"A sudden loss of net worth in middle or older age is associated with a significantly higher risk of death, reports a new Northwestern Medicine and University of Michigan study.

When people lose 75 percent or more of their total wealth during a two-year period, they are 50 percent more likely to die in the next 20 years, the study found."

[tjh290633]

I wonder what their study group was made up of? It suggests that they might be a group who had speculated and bet the farm on dodgy investments, without sufficient diversification. To lose 75% suggests that they did not own property, or had no insurance if they did. Their lifestyles might also be called into question.

From https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2677445

Results There were 8714 participants in the study sample (mean [SD] age at study entry, 55 [3.2] years; 53% women), 2430 experienced a negative wealth shock during follow-up, 749 had asset poverty at baseline, and 5535 had continuously positive wealth without shock. A total of 2823 deaths occurred during 80 683 person-years of follow-up. There were 30.6 vs 64.9 deaths per 1000 person-years for those with continuously positive wealth vs negative wealth shock (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.50; 95% CI, 1.36-1.67). There were 73.4 deaths per 1000 person-years for those with asset poverty at baseline (adjusted HR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.44-1.94; compared with continuously positive wealth).

Further down it says:

Patients and Characteristics

Of the 9751 participants in the original HRS cohort, 581 (6.0%) were excluded because of insufficient follow-up information to ascertain negative wealth shocks, and another 456 (4.7%) were excluded due to missing covariate data. These data were assumed to be missing at random. There were 8714 participants in the resulting analytical sample who were followed up for a mean of 17.7 years, totaling 80 683 person-years of follow-up from 1994 through 2014. Eight hundred twenty-three participants (9%) withdrew from the study before reaching the end of follow-up or death.

In the study sample, 2430 experienced a negative wealth shock during follow-up and 749 had asset poverty at baseline (0 or negative net worth). Accounting for the complex survey design of the HRS, this amounted to 26.2% (95% CI, 24.8%-27.7%) experiencing a negative wealth shock and 6.9% (95% CI, 6.3%-7.6%) having long-term asset poverty of the US population aged 51 years or older during the study period. Compared with those who had positive wealth without shock, those who had a negative wealth shock were more likely to be women, race/ethnicity other than non-Hispanic white, have lower levels household income and net worth, and have poor health (Table 1). These differences were even more extreme in the asset poverty group, the majority of whom were not married, not working, and had serious health conditions.

Very much USA oriented, and the cost of sudden health events would seem to be a factor.

I've only got partway down the original article, but I doubt that it is very relevant to UK investors.

TJH