Companies that buy life insurance policies direct have changed the entire life settlement industry. Until 2016, when we introduced the direct model at the LISA (Life Insurance Settlement Association) conference, anyone looking to sell their life insurance policy essentially had to go through a life settlement broker.
Working with a Life Settlement Broker
When working with a life settlement broker, please realize that life settlement brokers routinely take 30% of the sales proceeds of a life insurance policy and we’ve seen as much as 40 or 50%. A life settlement broker has the responsibility of finding a buyer for your life insurance policy and they work for you. A broker of your life insurance policy has a fiduciary responsibility to you to find the best offer, but does that mean you’re going to get the most money for your life insurance policy?
Working without a broker in any industry with which you are unfamiliar can seem a bit scary. But once you digest what a life settlement broker does and what they are supposed to do, it’s a lot less daunting than it seems on the surface.
What is Needed to Sell Your Policy for Cash?
Life settlement brokers prep your life insurance policy for sale, but you can gather what is needed to sell your policy for cash yourself or work with a direct buyer who will do it. What is needed to sell your policy for cash are all of your medical records and the pertinent illustrations and verification of coverage from your life insurance carrier.
Your medical information is used to get a third-party independent life expectancy report. There are more than half a dozen life expectancy reporting companies in the industry and essentially, they look at your health, family history, age etc., and arrive at how long you are expected to live.
A life expectancy is given in months. If a company looks at your medical information and decides that you have a 120 life expectancy, that means you’re expected to live 120 months or 10 years.
In force illustrations received from your life insurance company are then modeled to interpolate how much premium outlet is expected over that period of time to keep your life insurance policy in force until it matures, meaning until you pass away.
When you sell your life insurance policy to a third-party buyer, you are no longer responsible for the premiums. So, if you’re looking at cancelling or lapsing your life insurance policy because the premiums are becoming outrageously expensive or you don’t see anything happening to you beyond an accident in the short term, then rest assured that anybody purchasing your life insurance policy is going to look at it from the same standpoint.
Who Qualifies to Sell Their Life Insurance Policy?
Who qualifies to sell their life insurance policy is dependent on various factors. If you are 75 years old and in excellent health, you still may have value in your life insurance policy if you sell it. Even though you could be expected to live 10 or even 15 years and the premiums are expensive, there still could be a hidden value depending on your policy and policy provisions.
If you’re 40 years old and terminally ill with a life expectancy of three or four years, your insurance policy might have a value of 50 to 80% of your face amount. The value is derived because your premium at that age would be pretty low and unfortunately your life expectancy is short enough that a buyer of the life insurance policy is not expected to lay out a lot of premiums for a lot of years before receiving the proceeds from your life insurance.
A healthy 75-year-old can sell their life insurance policy and so can a sick 40-year-old. How do you get the most for your policy and how do you find companies that buy life insurance policy directly from the consumer?
Viatical.org Direct Platform
In 2016, the Viatical.org direct platform was introduced as a way for consumers to get their policies in front of companies that buy life insurance policies direct from the consumer. Some brokers work hard to sell your life insurance policy and it can be involved and expensive, but others essentially just send your information to direct buyers and take 30% of your proceeds.
If you are looking at selling your life insurance policy, please get a direct bid on the viatical.org platform before you make the decision to sell. We’ve been doing this for decades and have a network of licensed qualified institutional buyers that will pay top dollar for someone’s life insurance policy without any broker commission.
Your illustrations, verification of coverage, life insurance policy, and other information is obtained directly from our platform without you having to do anything. Our platform will also secure all of your medical records in a HIPAA-compliant approach so that buyers of life insurance policies are able to look at all your pertinent information without you having to do anything and without a broker involved.
There is no fee to utilize the viatical.org platform, the cost of medical records and life expectancy reports is born by the buyer as a cost of doing business. The service that viatical.org provides to licensed buyers and consumers allows a consumer to get a gross offer with no broker fees and at the same time allows a buyer to pay market rates for quality insurance policies.
What is the Value of My Life Insurance Policy?
It usually only takes a 5 or 10 minute phone call to see if you’re likely to qualify to sell your life insurance policy direct. If you do qualify, once all of your documents and records are obtained, we’re usually able to help answer the question “What is the value of my life insurance policy?” by giving you a pretty precise value of what you should expect in the secondary market for life insurance.
Please before you lapse or cancel your life insurance policy, make sure to give us a call to see if you might have a hidden value that you’re just throwing away. Every case is different because everyone’s health differs and no two policies are the same because of age and issue date.
We have helped thousands of people learn if there’s value in their insurance policy and facilitated sales through our platform to direct buyers.
Companies that buy life insurance policies direct should net you the best possible price for your policy. Please know that life insurance buyers have no obligation to the seller beyond fair practice. We always recommend getting multiple bids for your life insurance policy and have designed our platform to try and get your life insurance policy in front of as many licensed buyers in your state as possible.
If you’re already selling your life insurance policy, please give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to see if we can better the price you are expecting to receive. Again, it takes 5 or 10 minutes to learn if you’re likely to qualify and if you are likely to qualify, you simply sign some authorizations online that allow us to get your insurance information to value your life insurance policy and you really don’t have to do anything else until the offers come in.
No one’s under any obligation to sell their life insurance policy and you should never incur any fees for any part of the process involved in doing so. With no obligation and no fees to learn if you qualify to sell your life insurance policy, there’s really no reason not to explore the option if you’re considering cancelling or surrendering your policy.
Please give us a call today at 800-973-8258.