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Our Industry Provides Options
Things change. What makes sense today may not be what made sense a decade ago. Plans change, needs
shift, obligations and aspirations grow. For investors, individuals and others, security means
having the flexibility to make investments and to restructure your financial assets to meet your
current needs.
The life settlement industry provides that flexibility. It provides investors a way to offset market
fluctuations and to earn attractive returns. It gives individuals a way to tap the value of assets
previously unavailable or undervalued.
A life settlement transaction works this way: the owner of a life insurance policy "sells" it to a
provider for a cash amount less than the death benefit but more than what could be obtained if surrendered
to the insurance company that issued the policy. The provider takes over the payment of premiums on the
policy and collects the benefit of the policy when the insured dies. Very often the transaction between
the ultimate buyer, who is often an institutional investor, and seller/insured, who is often a high-net worth individual,
is mediated by a broker who develops sales leads and by a life settlement company (provider) that requests life
expectancy evaluations, bundles individual policies into financial instruments, and places those
instruments with investors.
For investors, life settlement-backed instruments offer an effective, uncorrelated hedge against the
economic cycles of other markets. For individuals, a life settlement unlocks an asset previously
unavailable or at best undervalued. This translates into cash that can be redeployed and reallocated
to meet today's needs.
Our Industry Runs Best on High-Quality Information
At the center of the industry and at the heart of every life settlement transaction is a life expectancy
evaluation — an actuarial and medical analysis of an insured's life expectancy, medical history
and impairments. Clients are well served by state of the art assessments which are the key to informed
decisions and to understanding the risks and rewards of each potential purchase.
To ensure that its results meet these high standards, 21st Services regularly tests and updates
its methodology to make sure they're providing the best evaluations possible. More than just a reliance
on actuarial data, these assessments also include evaluation by what is possibly the industry's most
sophisticated debit/credit model. Further 21st Services keeps a watchful eye towards future
mortality trends for adaptation into our methodology.
Our Industry Means Opportunity
The U.S. life insurance market is approximately $9 trillion and the growing interest in life settlements
reflects a desire on the part of policyholders and investors to develop new financial opportunities. As
the number of people older than 65 continues to grow (currently more than three times as fast as the U.S.
population overall), that interest will grow as well. 1
--->View Our Industry Trends
1. Life Insurance Long View Life Settlements Need Not Be Unsettling; Bernstein Research Call; Suneet Kamath and Timothy Sledge, March 4, 2005; Pages 1 & 2.
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