Program / application I wish was available on an HP...

[Gene]

The financial calculators can take care of compound interest and annuities, but I'm not aware of any handheld that will handle actuarial math, such as life annuities.

Basically it modifies the normal financial annuities with the probability that someone survives the next year and the year after that etc.

So, consider a perpetuity (a perpetual annuity). For an annual payment, the formula is:

PV = Payment / (annual interest rate)

So if you were to get $1000 a year forever, at an 8% interest rate, that's 1000 / 0.08 or $12,500.

But that's $1000 a year forever. Usually, someone pays an amount now to receive an annuity for as long as you live, not forever.

I've done this in Excel given a mortality table, but I really wish there were a handheld that had the little a-sub-x life annuity symbol.

Then you can have life annuity certain, joint life annuities, etc. Actuarial math is so morbid but so useful.

What machine would this be possible on ? An HP-41X rom / HP-42S would have the memory. The HP-48GX / 50G style machine could.

If wishes were fishes, we would all cast nets... :-) Just random musings.