Italy’s demographic trajectory has made elderly care a structural economic force. The country counted 14 million over-65s in 2025, representing 24.7 per cent of the population, a share projected to reach 35 per cent by 2050. With fertility falling—355,000 births in 2025, a 3.9 per cent annual decline—the silver economy already generates more than €400 billion in spendable income each year. That reality is redrawing the perimeter of the insurance industry, as executives gathered at the Insurtech Days in Milan made clear: the traditional model of underwriting risk and paying claims is being replaced by a paradigm built on prevention, protection and continuous care.

At the same Milan forum, Matteo Cattaneo, CEO of Reale Services, described a deliberate expansion of the insurer’s role, moving beyond policies to deliver a broader value of health and welfare services. Massimo Tessitore, CEO of InSalute Servizi, framed the shift as a transition to a proactive ecosystem in which insurers manage client health rather than premiums and claims. The mechanism relies on what Tessitore called “precision prevention”—using predictive data and models to target interventions at the right person, at the right life stage, rather than offering indiscriminate screening. Cristian Losito, a partner at EY, noted that shrinking household size makes elderly care more critical, positioning all connected assistance services at the centre of the economy and requiring a “longevity ecosystem” that integrates technology, infrastructure and insurance.

Viewed from Latin America, the same pressures are reshaping personal finance advice. In Colombia, Cibest Capital is urging workers to begin retirement planning from their first job, projecting future health costs and adopting budgeting rules such as the 50/30/20 model. Argentine advisers frame life insurance not as a death benefit but as income-protection strategy, designed to sustain a family or business through a disruption. US financial analysts, meanwhile, caution that carrying high-rate debt into retirement—when income is largely fixed—can quickly become unmanageable, reinforcing the need for early, structured planning.

The next milestone is the operational build-out of these longevity ecosystems. Insurers and health-service platforms are working to align incentives across providers, policyholders and national health systems so that prevention spending is offset by lower emergency-care costs. Whether that alignment proves durable will depend on the emergence of long-term client relationships, not annual policy renewals, and on the capacity of predictive models to deliver measurable health outcomes at scale.