According to the life expectancy world map on Wikipedia if you want to live past your 80s then your best chance is to be a citizen of Canada, Australia, Japan, Norway, Sweden, France, Switzerland or Iceland. This is based on the estimated length of life from birth. Life Expectancy is generally referred to as the total number of years a person will live. It can also be calculated as the remaining time someone is expected to live. It can therefore be calculated for any age.

The average life expectancy at birth for the World in 2007 is 65.82. The UK is well above this world average as people in Britain are expected to live until they are 78.7. The UK is 37th on the CIA list slightly below Belgium (78.92) and Germany (78.95). At 37 the UK ranks 8 places above the USA on the table. Americans are expected on average to live until they are 78.

Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrates the lowest life expectancies. Swaziland is bottom of the list with a desperate life expectancy of 32.23 years. Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Angola and Zambia all have expectancies below 40 years old. Andorra tops the list with over twice that of the bottom five at 83.52 years. Japan is third on the list with an expectancy of 82.02 years.

The life expectancy of Swaziland is comparable to Upper Paleolithic times when the average life span for a human was 33 years old. People living in Classical Greece, Classical Rome and Medieval Britain were expected to live between 20 and 30 years with the introduction of sewer systems and increased medical care facilitating a rise in life expectancy to 30-40 in the early 20th century.

In Europe gender differences have been lessening in recent years however women are still expected to outlive men. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS is said to largely accountable for the low expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whilst other regions of the world have experience a steady increase since 1950 Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region to have experienced a decrease in life expectancy.

Insurance companies use the information found in mortality tables to price their insurance products. The people that make these calculations are called Actuaries. In life insurance Actuaries use mathematical and statistical methods to calculate the risk of death of a policy holder. The three main variables that affect a mortality table are gender, age and the use of tobacco.

The mortality tables help ascertain; the probability of someone exceeding a particular age; a person' remaining life expectancy; the proportion of the original birth cohort that are still alive and; is able to estimate the characteristics that contribute to longevity. Tables are usually calculated differently for Men and Women. Life Insurance companies will often require a large amount of information from their potential clients. This enables them to calculate the policy effectively.