What are the considerations that make a Life Settlement [sale of a term life policy] a reasonable decision?
“Live Settlement” and “Viaticals” have received a lot of bad press, but the LS seems like a good deal to me when you are over 65 and wanting to shift financial resources to long term care risks and not death risks. I can’t find a good balanced discussion of LS as they are usually “sales” promos or obviously anti LS and Viatical materials. If you don’t need the death risk insurance, make sense to me if the policy can be converted into cash. Does anyone know of any balanced sources of information?
Elmer
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 PM
Clifford
for disclosure purposes I work in the life settlement business. The best way to look at life settlements from a consumer’s perspective is that we set a current market value for your policy that is often much higher then the surrender value. Using this value, the senior can decide if their is a better use for the money be it as you said an LTC policy, a different life policy or to use the cash to live. For many seniors with certain universal policies issued before 2002, the senior can actually settle their current policy and use the proceeds to fund a much better policy in terms of CSV, death benefits or lower premiums