A Quick Overview of Senior Life Settlements

Traditionally the additional value of an existing life insurance policy that the owner did not need would be surrendered at a value that is much lower than its face value. A fairly recent development in the insurance investment regulation allows for the buying and selling of existing life insurance policies, a move that many seniors find very lucrative. A life insurance settlement is a way for the policy holder to receive financial compensation greater than the amount they would have received if they surrendered the policy back to the insurance provider.

A senior life settlement is a specific type of life insurance settlement wherein a senior citizen sells their policy to an investor for around 10 to 20% of the face value. Most of the people who sell their policies for this rate are doing so because they cannot afford to keep the policy, have no one that they would like to give the policy to down the road or have found themselves a better deal and are optimizing their own financial situations.

The senior life settlements insurance market is a very quickly growing one; one study found that around $500 billion of life insurance was owned by seniors and a fifth of that was eligible for life settlements. Millions of dollars a year are made by these seniors who sell their policies to investors at a much higher rate than the insurance companies would typically pay back for these policies. In the right situation and to the right investor, selling your senior life insurance can be a very beneficial move and many thousands of people successfully make these transactions every year.