Lifespan predictions may sound like the stuff of Tarot cards and palm readers. But an increasingly sophisticated set of online tools promise to help individuals gain a sense of how long they might live — and retirees, healthcare providers and financial planners are paying attention.

Government agencies, geriatricians, financial-services firms and other groups are now offering these free Web-based calculators. The tools are gaining popularity as older adults face a host of difficult questions that revolve around life expectancy: Should you start taking Social Security at age 62 or wait and collect a bigger check at 70? Do the longer-term benefits of various types of cancer screening outweigh the immediate risks of these procedures? Given your current rate of portfolio withdrawals, do you risk outliving your nest egg?

Read the full article from Yahoo! Finance here.

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