Life Settlement Guide

Selling your life insurance policy is a straightforward process, and we will guide you through the process.  Once you have decided to sell your policy, we will walk you through the following steps.

two older people facing a body of water
Step One

1. Determine how much your policy is worth.

A life settlement only makes sense if the value of the underlying policy is worth more than the cash surrender value.

Lucky for you, that’s something Encore Life can help you with.

We are experts at evaluating longevity risk and that makes us experts in valuing life insurance policies. Longevity risk is the same risk considered when annuities are priced or when a reverse mortgage is priced.

A policy that has value will generally be worth something more than the cash surrender value and less than the face amount of the policy. Now that’s a big range, but that’s where we come in!

We need to understand two things to help you maximize the value of your insurance policy

  1. We need to understand how expensive the policy is for the new owner. That # is related to the premiums you pay every year. It’s not the same, but if you know that, then you are on your way and we can help you figure it out from there.
  2. We need to understand how healthy you are. Basically, we need to know how your health compares with the health of people just like you. You probably already know this, and there are some specific questions that can help us determine the answer, so give us a call and we will walk you through those questions – alternatively, you can start right now by using this link.

Now we should have an idea of the value of your policy. It might be a very specific number or it might be a range. But in any case, we are ready to move on to step two. The more specific the information we have the more accurate the policy value will be. If we are able to determine a very specific number based on the information provided, then you will be able to jump to step #3.
 

Step Two

2. Verify policy details and health information.

It’s really 2 different categories of information we need: information related to your health and information related to your life insurance policy.

We can help you gather this information and, usually, it requires very little work from you. We might need permission from you to speak with your healthcare professional or to speak with the insurance company, but once we have that, we can do all the heavy lifting. And it will also ensure that all of this happens as quickly as possible.

As they say, we do this for a living, so we have gotten pretty good at it after many years. We may get a 3rd party to review some of the information to assess it, but sometimes that is not required. We will keep you informed every step along the way.

During this process or step, there may be unique things that come up. But it’s likely we have seen something similar over our entire history in the business. And as a result, we are excellent at navigating some of these unique issues.
 

Step Three

3. Receive an offer for your policy.

Your written offer will contain the price that you will receive when the transaction closes and any terms and conditions necessary for the transaction. We will walk you through all of it.

Life settlements are regulated by 43 states, so it’s likely that the transaction will occur following very specific standards determined by your state legislature.

All life insurance in the US is regulated by each state individually. This has been true in the US for centuries. And since a life settlement involves an insurance policy, regulations are defined at the state level. That means different rules for every state. But the good news is the transaction documents are likely to be very to be standardized (kind of like when you buy a home).
 

Step Four

4. Close on your life insurance policy sale.

Closing on your life insurance policy simply requires you to review and sign the documents that we send to you.

Pretty straightforward at this point, but once the documents are fully executed then your offer is locked in.  All we are waiting for at this point is for the life insurance carrier to change the owner of the policy.
 

Step Five

5. Receive payment for your life insurance policy.

As soon as the life insurance carrier provides written confirmation, then you will immediately receive the cash.

We are happy to have it wired to you, so you can immediately enjoy the proceeds or we can have a check overnighted to you.
 

You Are Done!

That’s It! Enjoy the cash you receive.

Enjoy the cash proceeds and know that you have significantly increased the value of your life insurance policy and turned it into cash.

Whether you plan to use the cash to take a bucket-list vacation or buy something special for you or for someone special or just to pay some bills, we are excited to have walked through this process with you. And we hope you enjoy the money!