Affluent Women Over 70 Are Discovering Life Settlements

“Changes in family dynamics, such as the death of a spouse or divorce, can present a new set of challenges for senior women–especially as it relates to decisions regarding in-force life insurance policies owned by either spouse…According to a study released by Conning Research and Consulting…’life settlements provide a secondary market for unneeded or unwanted life (insurance) policies, and a positive financial benefit to many of the insured that take advantage of them.'”

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Advisor, Advanced Settlements, Inc.

Our Take on the Secondary Market for Life Insurance

“Joe, 70 years old, decides he no longer wants his $1 million universal life insurance policy. His health may have worsened, his beneficiaries may have died, or he simply can no longer afford the premiums. Prior to the emergence of the life settlements market, Joe would have had two choices: 1) accept the insurer’s contractually agreed upon surrender value, which is well below the policy’s fair market value, or 2) let the policy lapse and receive nothing. That’s an easy decision!

“With a life settlements market, Joe could sell his policy to a life settlement company for up to 3 times its cash surrender value…”

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Stock Analyst, Morningstar

Will History Repeat Itself?

“A life settlement is simply a financial planning alternative for policyholders to receive the real value in their insurance policies. The essential distinction between life settlements and cash-surrender values or ADBs is that life settlements give consumers the market value of their life insurance policies.

“In Wharton’s recent study, ‘The Benefits of a Secondary Market for Life Insurance Policies,’…the authors conclude that, during the calendar year of 2002, life settlement providers paid approximately $340 million to acquire life insurance policies with a collective cash-surrender value of roughly $94 million.

“Policyholders who got the information about the life settlement market received nearly four times as much value for their policies as they would have received had they been deprived of this information…”

Read More: Will History Repeat Itself?

Attorney-at-Law, Townsend, Townsend & Crew, L.L.P.