Warning: Long-Post
I have
received several questions in recent weeks asking for my opinion on a life
settlements. Rather than continuing to answer these questions piecemeal, it
seems to make more sense to put the whole thing in writing so I can point
people to a more thorough treatment of the subject than I can sometimes give on
the radio or in a Q&A session.
The topic is
a big one, so I will tackle it in several parts. To begin with, what exactly is
a life settlement? What are the risks? - There must be some because we know
there is no such thing as a risk free return in excess of what U.S. Treasuries
will pay. They are not obvious but they are significant. Finally, do I like
them as an investment?
What is a life settlement?
A life
settlement is when the owner of a life insurance policy sells the policy for
more than the surrender value but significantly less than the death benefit
because they no longer need the policy, can't afford the premiums, or need the
cash. The purchaser pays the premiums and becomes the beneficiary of the
policy. When the insured dies, the new policy owner gets the proceeds rather
then the insured's heirs.
Typically,
the policy is bought by a viatical settlement provider. That company may hold
the policies as an asset in their investment portfolio. More often, they
securitize a group of policies and sell an interest in the pool of policies to
investors - much like the mortgages that were pooled into collateralized
mortgage obligations and all those other various acronyms you read about in the
paper these days. In this case, they are a broker-dealer of life settlements.
Example
A
policyholder sells a policy with a $100,000 death benefit for $50,000. The settlement provider
or broker-dealer would take $50,000 of the money raised from investors and use
it to pay the policyholder. When the policy holder dies, the settlement company
receives the $100,000.
On the other
side of the transaction, the company sells an interest in the policy to
investors at some discount greater than the discount offered to the insured.
For example, the broker-dealer offers the interest to investors at a 28% discount. The broker-dealer collects $72,000
from the investor and uses $50K to pay the seller of the policy, pocketing the
difference. Some of that is paid as commission to the sales agent and the rest
goes into company coffers.
When the
insured dies, the insurance company pays money to the settlement provider, who
then distributes the $100,000 proceeds to the investors. If the insured had a
two year life expectancy and died on schedule, the investor would receive the
full 28% return indicated by the discount. If the insured lives beyond the two
year life expectancy, for six years say, the investor still receives the 28%
holding period return, but because of the increased number of years to earn the
return, the annualized return is reduced to 3.5%.
Brief History
Life
settlements sprang up in the 1980s in the form of viatical settlements - the
sale of a life insurance policy by a terminally ill policy holder. The price
paid for the policy was/is discounted from face value based on the anticipated
life expectancy of the person selling the policy - the longer the life
expectancy, the steeper the discount.
Viaticals
became big business - and big news - in the 1990s because of the AIDS epidemic.
The industry was largely unregulated and rife with fraud.
Advances in
AIDS treatments eventually undermined the viatical industry, which was based on
the certain and imminent death of the insured. Advances in medical technology
soon had AIDS victims living longer and some went into remission altogether.
The same thing started happening with cancer patients. Seeking greener
pastures, the industry moved on to life settlements, also sometimes known as
senior settlements.
The difference between viaticals and life settlements
A search of
the web finds the term viatical settlement is defined, in conventional usage,
as the sale of a policy where the insured is terminally ill and anticipates
death within 24 to 36 months. A life settlement is the sale of a policy on an
insured who is generally over the age of 65, not terminally ill, but whose
mortality is predictable based on standard actuarial methods.
What returns can an investor expect?
It is hard to
find any marketer of life settlements promising less than double digit returns.
In a report by the Conference for Advanced Life Underwriting, the author notes,
"Presumably, high current returns reflect an immature market, where
uncertain regulation, doubtful liquidity and high risk of deception or outright
fraud require a premium on the investment yield, and will revert to more
conservative norms as the market matures."
Risks of investing in viaticals or life settlements
Federal and
state regulators consider life settlements to be securities. That means the
person selling them must be licensed to sell securities. It also means they
must provide you with a full and fair disclosure of all material facts,
including a discussion of the risks, in the form of a prospectus or other
similar document.
Liquidity risk - unlike stocks, bonds or other highly liquid
securities, you probably cannot readily convert a life settlement into cash if
you need it. This means you may not get any money from the investment until the
insured dies and the claim is paid. It is possible the insured could live much
longer than expected, or even outlive you. There are plenty of cases where that
has happened. Can you afford to lock your money up until the insured dies?
Longevity risk - "There's an old saying,
`The only sure things in life are death and taxes' and viatical salesmen play
on that," said Denise Voigt Crawford, Texas securities commissioner.
"They tell investors that because death is a sure thing, viaticals are too.
But the only sure thing with viaticals are the large commissions some brokers
get, making it even tougher for investors to get the returns they're
promised."
The Florida
Department of Financial Services, which regulates securities in the state of
Florida, says in their pamphlet on life settlements, "Be cautious of any
person that represents these investments as guaranteed or low risk." The
life expectancy of the insured is just a guess. Those stubborn insureds and
their doctors aren't in any hurry to make your investment pay off. They can and
do live longer than the life expectancy estimate.
Longevity
risk is particularly relevant in IRAs and other retirement savings vehicles
because they produce no income and are not liquid. This is a serious problem if
the insured outlives the life expectancy estimate and you need retirement
income. It is exacerbated if you reach the age of required minimum
distributions and can't make them.
Variability of return - If the insured dies within the estimated
timeframe, your return will be high. If they don't, your return will be low.
Beyond the ghoulishness of waiting around for some poor soul to die so you can
profit from their demise, the variability of returns is a risk. It isn't the
slam dunk the salesperson often portrays.
Quality of life expectancy estimate - The life
expectancy estimate is the key to return. If the company or its consultants
improperly evaluate life expectancy, or worse, misrepresent the life
expectancy, promised returns go out the window. Like all pooled investments,
there is no transparency. It is difficult for the investor to really know what
they own and the reputation of the parties involved. Considering the dodgy
history of the industry, this lack of transparency is particularly troubling.
Credit risk - There are significant activities
and associated costs incurred while the policy is outstanding. These include
paying the premiums, tracking the insured, monitoring the health of the
insured, filing a claim when the insured dies, and distributing the proceeds to
investors. The credit worthiness of the life settlement issuer is a major
issue. Who will pay these costs if the broker-dealer goes out of business of is
otherwise unable to pay these costs?
There is also
credit risk in the insurer as well. Viatical investment promoters commonly
assure investors that issuing life companies have a high credit rating and are
unlikely to fail. That is not necessarily true. Regulators seized Confederation
Life in 1994, when it was rated B++ and had been rated A+ (superior) only the
year before. For those unfamiliar with the company, it was the single largest
life insurance company to fail in North America, with total losses in the
billions.
Legal risk - Because the heirs lost out on
whatever return the investors and issuer made, they can and often do challenge
the change of ownership in the policy, tying up the proceeds in legal
proceedings and incurring additional legal fees.
Again,
transparency is an issue insofar as you could lose the entire investment if the
settlement provider, issuer, broker-dealer, agent or others involved encounter
financial trouble or are involved in fraud. Life insurance companies have two
years to investigate and rescind policies obtained using fraudulent
information. They may also sue for damages.
Many
applications, for example, ask the applicant whether they intend to sell the
policy. If the insured says no, at the time, and then later sells the policy,
there is potential grounds for rescission. Other potential pitfalls involve
policies that contain intentionally misleading information from the insured,
known as "cleansheeting." This is when an insured or agent
deliberately leaves relevant information off the application. If you think this
doesn't happen, think of all the fraudulent mortgage applications that were
filed in the last few years.
Another
scheme that could cause you to lose money is known as "wet ink." This
is where the policyholder obtains a life insurance policy for the specific
purpose of immediately reselling it. Some are even encouraged by unscrupulous
life settlement providers to repeat the practice over and over again.
Regulatory risk - Given that the SEC, FINRA and state regulators
have deemed life settlements to be securities, the question of suitability
comes into play. In the case of a life settlement, it is not just suitability
of the investment for the buyer, but in this case, also for the seller. If the
seller was allowed to sell a policy when it was not in his or her best
interest, or the best interest of the heirs, as is often the case, regulators
could take action.
The SEC
recently filed their first case involving life settlements, going after a hedge
fund for improper disclosure. This firmly establishes the SEC's intent to claim
regulatory jurisdiction over life settlements, something they had not done
until now.
Legislative risk - Life insurance is tax
advantaged in that the value is allowed to build up tax deferred and no income
or capital gains is due on the death benefit. This special treatment was due to
the role life insurance is supposed to play in caring for a family after the
death of the breadwinner.
Congress,
which is faced with large budget deficits, has been licking their chops
over the cash buildup in life insurance
policies for quite awhile now. Life settlements, which threaten to turn life
insurance policies into nothing more than an investment, may be the excuse
Congress has been looking for to tax life insurance policies.
What is my opinion on life settlements?
I have
covered the risks at length. Personally, I am much more comfortable with market
risk. There is also just the general idea, which I find repugnant. I don't care
how much they pay.
"The
psychology of investing in viaticals is different than investing in other types
of instruments, and people need to consider that going in," said Bradley
Skolnik, Indiana securities commissioner and chair of NASAA's enforcement
section. "The risk is high with viaticals, and investors need to ask
themselves if the potential reward is worth the burden of hoping someone will
die quickly so they can maximize their return."
Beyond those
two things, I am a cash flow investor. I believe that today's investor has to
be most concerned with matching up cash outflows to cash inflows. Life
settlements offer no cash flow and no liquidity. Combining them with a traditional cash flow
investment, like bonds or an immediate annuity, drops the return to an
unacceptable level for the person who has to make a bare minimum of 10% a year
(.04 + .04)/(1-.25) to cover a 4%
withdrawal rate, minimum of 4% inflation and an assumed 25% marginal tax rate.
My take is
life settlements are another great product for the commissioned salesman
selling them but a bad idea for you. You can do better.
SOURCES:
1. Rothberg,
Ed, Viatical and Life Settlements: Investing
Without a Safety Net. CALU Report (Conference for Advanced Life
Underwriting, 2005) http://www.calu.ca/publicationDetails.asp?x=&y=EHQ-7142005-3382&i=308&d=1&z=
(accessed April 9, 2008,).
2. “NASD
Warns on Viaticals,” Financial & Tax Fraud
Associates, Inc. http://www.quatloos.com/viaticals.htm
(accessed April 9, 2008,).
3. Viaticals and Life Settlements, (Florida
Department of Financial Services: Office of Financial Regulation) http://www.fldfs.com/Consumers/literature/Viaticals2.pdf
(accessed April 10, 2008,).
Kim Snider is
the President and Founder of Snider Advisors, a SEC Registered Investment
Advisor, focused on teaching individual investors a sensible, long-term
investment approach focused on maximizing cash flow. For more information on
Snider Advisors or the Snider Investment Method and how to stop enriching your
investment advisors at your expense, please visit snideradvisors.com. Her book, How to Be the Family CFO: Four Simple Steps To Put Your Financial House in Order, will be in bookstores October 1, 2008.
Snider Advisors makes no representation that the information and
opinions expressed are accurate, complete or current. The opinions expressed
should not be construed as financial, legal, tax, or other advice and are
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Investment Method™ Owner's Manual, which includes a description of the
Snider Investment Method, investment objectives, risks, suitability and other
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