When Should You Consider A Life Settlement?

There are limited times when a life settlement may be the right thing for you to consider. If you are in any one of the following situations you may want to consider a life settlement as an option for you.

Life Settlement Considerations

1. If you are seventy (70) years of age or older you may be struggling to maintain monthly premium payments on your life insurance policy. If this is the case, a life settlement may relieve you of this burden.
2. If you are in need of long term nursing care, medical care or even expensive in home care, you may want to consider a life settlement. In these cases, you will want to find out first if your life insurance company offers any type of provision that will allow you to cash your policy out early.
3. If you have outlived your beneficiaries you may consider agreeing to a life settlement. This will allow you to utilize the cash from your life insurance policy while you are still living since it will not benefit your selected beneficiary.
4. If you are considering donating the proceeds of your life insurance policy to a charitable organization, you may want to find out if they would benefit more from the cash proceeds of a settlement versus ownership of a donated policy.
5. If you are considering changing your investment portfolio to an annuity, it may be beneficial to you to consider liquidating your life insurance policy at the same time. Be sure to check what the cash surrender value of the policy is before you agree to a life settlement.
6. If you are the owner or partner in a company and hold key-life insurance on one of your partners/co-owners when they decide to retire you may want to consider a life settlement on your key man policies - this can give you extra cash to invest in your business.
7. If your accountant (or tax attorney) advises you that changes in estate tax laws may negatively impact your life insurance policy you may want to consider a life settlement or cash surrender of your policy.
8. If you are forced to liquidate assets due to a need to file for bankruptcy and your policy does not offer a cash settlement value you may want to consider accepting a life settlement.

You Must Be The Original Life Settlement Policy Holder

It is important that you understand that typically life settlement policies must have been owned by you (the policy holder) for not less that two years. As a policy holder there are some benefits to utilizing life settlements:

• they can offer cash for gifts to family members
  
• they can provide you with funds for charitable donations
  
• they can assist you in paying high medical expenses
  
• for businesses they can offer payment towards company debts

Don't accept any offer that is given to you immediately without checking for better offers. Be sure to always verify you are working with a licensed and reputable firm before signing any contracts.