Bob Graham, Executive Editor

The Wall Street Journal’s Carl Bialik recently analyzed online life expectancy calculators, based largely on the projections each gave for the life expectancy of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, or, put another way, the chances that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will become president during his term (if he wins election Nov. 4).

The numbers varied by as much as a decade, with 14 years for McCain being the longest projected lifespan for the Arizona senator, who is now 72 years old. Bialik in his Numbers column describes the errors and fallacies of each mainstream life expectancy calculator.

“Just don’t expect the results to be accurate,” Bialik wrote. “I tried out a handful of these life-expectancy calculators and got a range spanning 14 years — longer than Franklin Roosevelt’s time in the White House. Steven Weisbart, vice president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, has also tried them and gotten a spread of a decade.”

Bialik adds a quote from Weisbart: “The best you could do would be to get a cloud of outcomes.”

While insurance companies have far more sophisticated calculators and criteria for determining life expectancy for their policyholders, Bialik’s report does offer insight into what consumers visiting a life agent may think they know or what they may expect.

Knowing and responding to these consumer understandings of life expectancy - even if they are wrong — can play a huge role in turning these “informed” people into life-long — no matter how long that turns out to be –- clients.