Life Settlement Market
The emerging market place called Life Settlement recently has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek. That market place is changing the way many seniors will think about their unwanted life insurance policies. Life Settlements is a rapidly growing sector in the financial markets and many of the large Wall Street firms are rushing to capitalize on this asset class, particularly with mortgage-backed securities being so volatile. As reported in BusinessWeek (July 30, 2007), industry analysts estimate that the life settlement market currently is a $30 billion industry and is expected to exceed $160 billion annually by the year 2030. The investors who buy life settlements are some of the world’s largest investment firms, including Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Cantor Fitzgerald, Berkshire Hathaway,Merrill Lynch and many more. (They continue to make the payments on the policy, so that when you die, the investment firm gets the proceeds.)
