The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Discover the True Value of Your Life Insurance with Life Insurance Settlements

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Discover the True Value of Your Life Insurance with Life Insurance Settlements lisettlements.com Show Notes About the Guest(s): Mark Mrky is a Managing Partner of Life Insurance Settlements Inc. With over 23 years of experience in the life settlement industry, Mark is an expert in helping seniors discover the true value of their life insurance policies. He is passionate about educating individuals on the concept of life settlements and the financial benefits they can provide. Rob Haynie is the Managing Director of Life Insurance Settlements Inc. With 30 years of experience in the industry, Rob has extensive knowledge of the life settlement market. He is dedicated to helping individuals navigate the process of selling their life insurance policies and maximizing their financial options. Episode Summary: In this episode, Chris Voss interviews Mark Mrky and Rob Haynie from Life Insurance Settlements Inc. They discuss the concept of life settlements and how individuals can discover the true value of their life insurance policies. Mark and Rob explain how life settlements work, the benefits they offer, and why they are often a better option than surrendering or letting a policy lapse. They also address common misconceptions about life settlements and highlight the potential financial opportunities they provide for seniors. This episode serves as an informative guide for anyone considering selling their life insurance policy. Key Takeaways: Life settlements offer a viable option for individuals who no longer need or can afford their life insurance policies. The life settlement market is a robust secondary market where institutional investors purchase life insurance policies from policyholders. On average, life settlement offers are two to seven times higher than the cash surrender value offered by insurance carriers. Life settlements can provide seniors with a significant cash payout that can be used for various purposes, such as healthcare expenses or retirement planning. It is essential for individuals to explore the option of a life settlement and consult with professionals to determine the best course of action for their specific situation. Notable Quotes: "If you no longer need, no longer want, or can't afford your life insurance policy, you have an option called a life settlement." - Mark Mrky "Life settlements are a way to put life back into life insurance and take advantage of the premiums you've paid all those years." - Rob Haynie

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

The Chris Voss Show. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. The Iron Lady sings, and that makes it official. Welcome to the show. As always, we certainly appreciate you guys being on the show and ladies and gentlemen. The Iron Lady sings and that makes it official. Welcome to the show. As always, we certainly appreciate you guys being on the show and coming and listening. Be sure to share the show with your friends, neighbors, relatives. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfoss, chrisfoss1 on the TikTokity, the chrisfoss newsletter,

the 130,000 LinkedIn group over there as well. We've got these amazing gentlemen on the show with us. Gentle men on the show with us today. Two executives are joining us. They're going to be talking to us about their company, Life Insurance Settlements Incorporated, and how to discover the true value of your life insurance. They have some strategies that are pretty unique and amazing that I don't think a lot of people know about.

We're going to be welcoming the show. We've got Mark Murky and Rob Haney on the show with us today. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Thank you much, Chris. We do appreciate you bringing us live and on to your show today. Live at five. Same here, Chris. Looking forward to it.

There you go. Now, gentlemen, give me your titles at your company and dot coms and the good stuff there. Go ahead, Rob. My name is Rob Haney. I am the managing director of Life Insurance Settlements, Inc. I've been in the business for 30 years, and that may sound like a long time. But the fact of the matter is Mark and I are going to get discussed a little bit today. It's really just beginning our industry.

So being on a show like yours with an audience as large as yours is going to help us get the word out. There you go. Mark. Yep. My name is Mark Murky, the guy with no vowels in his last name, as you can see, M-R-K-Y. And I joined Rob about 23 years ago in this lovely space we call Life Settlements. And we've been doing it ever since. And again, Chris, we appreciate you having us on to talk about a subject that I'll say 90% of the seniors out there, folks that are 65 and older,

have absolutely no clue exists. So we're super, super excited about talking to you and giving your viewers, your audience, a little bit of information on a concept that they're probably not familiar with and just might make them a whole lot of money in certain circumstances. So, yeah. There you go. And sometimes when you're in retirement age, you need some extra cash. You've got to cruise around the world and do all those fun things people do in retirement. So give us a 30,000 overview of your company and what you guys do there.

Sure. Rob, take the lead there. So Life Insurance Sentiments, Inc. is a broker, meaning we represent the seller of the life insurance policy, whether that be the seller contacts us directly or we work through their financial advisor, their wealth planner, their estate planning attorney, their auto law attorney, etc. And what we do is we take a life insurance policy that they may no longer want, they may no longer need, or they can no longer afford. And rather than surrender the policy for the cash value, should there be any or let it lapse in the case of a term,

we go out to a marketplace and present their policy to investors where they will make competitive bids until that competitive bid process ends. We relay that information to the seller, and he or she makes a decision what's best for them. The best thing about this is I'm on the board of directors of LISA, which is our industry association. In the last two years, we have backed into numbers based upon number of sales that occurred that year, death benefit, cash surrender value, et cetera, and found that clients receive sometimes four as to as much as eight times more on average if they settle versus surrender. We think it's worth the exercise. It's a free non-binding appraisal and Mark's the best we got in the industry. And he could tell you a little bit more. Yeah. You know, you just mentioned a word that probably put most viewers to sleep.

Life insurance. You know, no one likes talking about life insurance. I mean, come on. But let me give you an analogy. And this will, for the viewers, the listeners, this should put things into perspective about what we're talking about today. So let's say you have this asset. It's your house. And you've lived in this house for 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years.

It doesn't matter for as long as you want. And all of a sudden, one day, you and your wife come to this conclusion that your kids have grown up. You've sold your business and you'd like to move somewhere else or whatever it may be. You have this house. You no longer want it. So what do you do? You go to a real estate broker. What does a real estate broker do?

They put that sign in your front yard. And you wait about three, four, five weeks. And what do you do? They put that sign in your front yard and you wait about three, four, five weeks. And what do you do? You take and look at all the offers that prospective buyers want to give you on your house. That's just common practice. And you what? You take the highest bid for your house. That's common practice. Well, what's existed in the life insurance industry is a little bit different. Up until about 30 years ago, if you own this asset, now we're talking about your life insurance, wake up. But if you own this asset, your life insurance, and you no longer needed your life insurance for various reasons, your kids moved out, you sold your business, you retired, you got divorced, whatever it is,

you only had one choice. That was to go back to the insurance carrier and take what the insurance carrier gave you. You know what that's called? It's called a monopsony. If you don't know that definition, it means just this. It means you have one buyer to purchase your asset. And up until about 30 years ago, that's what existed with life insurance. If you no longer wanted, no longer needed, couldn't afford your life insurance policy, you had to go back to the insurance. If you no longer wanted, no longer needed, couldn't afford your life insurance policy, you had to go back to the insurance carrier and you took what they gave you. That's called a monopsony. I can't pronounce the word. So imagine that again, in my analogy,

if you had to do that with your house, if you had to go back to the bank that owned your home and you said, hey, I want out. And you had to take the bank's offer. That was the only offer. Think that's a good deal? Maybe, sometimes. But more often than not, if you have 10 or 20 or 30 buyers like we have in the life settlement industry that will line up and potentially bid on owning your insurance policy, why wouldn't you take that option? So that's the best analogy I can give you when it comes to life settlements and how it relates to selling this asset that you own, which, again, is your life insurance. There's a robust market, a secondary market for life insurance. And that's what myself and Rob and other companies like us, that's what we represent. We represent buyers that exist in the life settlement industry that will purchase your policy from you.

And these are large institutions. This isn't Joey Bagadone at Santa La Corna that wants to buy insurance policy from you and hopes you die tomorrow after he buys your policy. No, no, no, no, no. Get that out of your head. These are large institutional capital sources, like hedge funds and pension funds and accredited investment capital that will buy your policy. And typically, and the numbers I'll throw at you, these are facts. Typically, the amount in a life settlement offer is anywhere from two to seven times the insurance carrier's value. So put that into perspective. You've got a, say, a million dollar

insurance policy that you could surrender for 20 grand well on average your life settlement offer might be 150 grand might be 200 grand whatever it is industry average is around 20 on policies so um you know as we said when we got on we're thrilled to let your audience know about this option because 90 of the time and this is a really, a very real figure, 90% of the time when clients let their policies go, universal life policy, IUL, VUL, a convertible term policy, no one tells them about the life settlement option. And there's various reasons why. Our industry's young, as Rob said, we're probably less than 30 years old and we got a long way to go and a lot of education to cover. And this is why we do what we do here today is educate your viewers on a on an outstanding option for when and if you come to

that conclusion that your life insurance has served its needs and now you have an option called a life settlement do most people think of uh as their life insurance as an asset do they are they aware of that more probably i i always thought of as liability because i'm like so so i'll answer that that's a great question so the answer is no and i'll tell you why most cpas who probably have a better understanding of an individual's net worth and and and assets that they hold always looked at and at least in the case of my cpa as an expense when you paid the insurance premium. So you own the – 1911 was the Supreme Court. Oliver Wender Holmes ruled that it's an asset just like your home.

So you own it. It's real property. For example, you can take a life insurance policy today, Chris, that you may own, and you could assign it at the carrier level and make the beneficiary your neighbor's dog and not even tell them. And when you died, at the breeding of your estate, they would will the money, the proceeds of your death benefit to your neighbor's dog should he or she be alive. But that just shows you the flexibility. So you're in total control of your life insurance. To Mark's point, they don't tell you because they don't want to pay a death claim.

Life insurance companies are in business of collecting premiums, right? It sounds good in the beginning. Why do people buy life insurance when they're young? Well, one, they get sold life insurance and it's cheaper. As you trickle up through age, say you buy at 35 and you get to be 70, those premiums can be three or four times more. And all of a sudden the needs, Mark alluded to be 70, those premiums can be three or four times more. And all of a sudden the needs, Mark alluded to this earlier, I have kids, I've got a house, I may have a vacation home, I may have a small business, I have lease payments, employees, et cetera. So you buy life insurance for protection.

When you're 70, all those reasons are gone. Do you want to continue to pay those premiums? And the answer large and in part is no so think about think about this as a business model you issue 100 pieces of paper and 90 of them come back to you but you've kept all the money they paid to have those pieces of paper and the other 10 you pay out the death benefit if you will based upon the premiums of not only the people that have paid them, but the others as well. So you're making money hand over fist. Life insurance companies have this practice of continuing to issue life insurance policies, but not tell them about all their options. What's interesting, and then I'll shut up for a second,

is when we settle a life insurance policy, we are mandated by the State Department of Insurance, which regulates life insurance carriers as well, to tell them all the inferior options that exist outside of the settlement. You can take a loan less than the settlement. You could borrow against the policy. You can sell half the policy. You can surrender the policy. You can let it lapse. These are all inferior, but we have to, mandated by the states, to do that. The life insurance carriers fight every year across all the state houses in all 50 states in Puerto Rico to make sure they don't have to disclose that a settlement option exists. And that's kind of the battle we're in. I guess they kind of win if you abandon or surrender it.

They kind of win because they're like, hey, I just got a great deal. I mean, life insurance is an outstanding option. You know, I own it. I have kids. Rob owns it. He has kids. People own it. It's to protect their business.

It's an outstanding option. No one's doubting that. But these numbers, I'm about ready to quote you. And what Rob just alluded to is 80, I think it's 85% of all universal life policies and 88% of term policies never pay a death claim. What does that mean? It means you paid in all that money, all your premiums every single year on time. And then you got to a point 5, 10, 15, 20 years later, and you said, all right, I'm

good. I don't need my insurance anymore. I'm just going to surrender it. I'm going to take what the insurance carrier gives me. Or in the case of a term, I'll take the zero. So that life insurance carrier never has to pay a death claim more than 80% of the time. Again, no one is faulting insurance companies. They are great for their purpose.

But when comes time that you no longer need, no longer can afford your insurance, if you're not looking into the settlement option or your advisor is not recommending that you look into it, you're absolutely leaving money on the table. And unfortunately, we're in a time right now where you've actually got carriers who will bury this option. You've got carriers, and I won't mention them. You know who you are that actually will fire their employees for mentioning a life settlement. Now, you talk about the breach of fiduciary duty. How can you not tell your client about a life settlement if he's 75, 85 years old, he's got a surrender value of 25 grand in his million dollar policy, yet you know you could

get him 200 or 250 in a life settlement. It's one of the things that infuriates me that these insurance carriers kind of get away with it. You've got broker-dealers that still don't understand our industry, registered investment advisors that still don't understand our industry. But we're coming along. You see ads on the television from a couple of buyers that we represent, which is great. And I think in 10 years, five years, it's going to be commonplace. You're really going to see information about life settlements. But again, this is why we do what we do and get on with people like you, Chris, to spread the word that you have an option. And it's not just what the carrier says your option is. You now have this option called life settlement. So Chris, I'll just add to that. A couple of years ago, we backed

into numbers through the ACLI fact book, which is the American Council of Life Insurers produces a book of information related to insurance carriers. We which is the american council life insurance produces a book of information related to insurance carriers we backed into the number of life insurance policies for people over the age of 65 that were either lapsed or surrendered in a calendar year that number was 112 billion holy crap okay we as an industry on top of that, bought $4 billion. Wow. So we only bought $4 billion. $112 went away. Now, let's be honest.

All $112 would not have been a life settlement, guaranteed. Just for 100 reasons, it wouldn't have happened. But let's say 25% of that would have been. That's a huge number. So that's where we talk about our business being in infancy and the lack of awareness and the fact, again, that we could be our business being an infancy and the lack of awareness. And the fact, again, that we could be on a show with your audience and your breadth of an audience and depth of an audience that can get out there and say,

wait a minute, this is the first time I'm ever hearing about this. Hell, my mom has a life insurance policy. We're using these life insurance policies to go from position of not being able to afford in-home healthcare to be able to afford in-home healthcare, not be able to go to the assisted living facility of their choice and to going to the assisted living facility of their choice, taking that vacation, getting that family reunion, doing

whatever they want. There's no restrictions on how you spend money. It is your money. And that's our goal is to let people know that, you know, a girl that I work with that does manage my LinkedIn page came up with the concept yesterday. You know, we fund fun. and that's what this does. This gives you flexibility. Take away the stress of everyday living and say, you know what?

I want this. I want to remake the downstairs of my home so my father can come live with me, and we can shower and put up their handrails. Those things take money. Those things take money to do that. This is the way to do it you know this this is really amazing because i remember living through the 2008 housing crisis and i know when seniors get in trouble they'll look at selling their home but i mean you can't sell your home and easily move to another one now i mean my mom's got a lot of equity in her home

and you know i've joked about having her downize because she has a giant yard and all this stuff. But when she looks at moving someplace else, it's, you know, the, she would lose number one, all her equity, the costs of, of what homes are, what she got hers 30 years ago are, are, you know, crazy. Even if you buy something small, um, it's insane. And so, you know, having this option is amazing. You guys touched on a few other things. I know one of the big things that are going on in families now is older people as they

need more help and assistance, but maybe they're not able to enter a care center. You know, the families are taking care of them. So there's that aspect you guys mentioned, you know, they could pay for the service care and home care. I know that for my mom and other people, they're elderly, you know, they don't want to die in a, in a, in a home. And, and so trying to stay in their homes and get care they need, I think she has a special policy that's supposed to pay for that. But, you know, there's, this gives so many people, so many resources that I've seen that, you know, the first thing they'll do is try and sell their home. And then they're kind of basically, you know, put out to pasture in a home where they have to stay with the kids. And this gives people so much more availability. Plus the beautiful part of that is, is if you're sick of your kids and they didn't turn out the way you like, you can just cut this way to cut them out of the will say, fuck those kids. I'm going to have fun. I'm going to Ibiza with my insurance policy.

In fact, you could probably run an ad for that. Are you sick of your kids? Do they not call you anymore like they're supposed to? Have they forgotten that you were their mom and changed their diapers? Well, sell your life insurance. Screw those kids. Go to Greece. That's what happens.

I'm not going to lie to you. Don't tell my mom i love her tonight um but uh no i mean there's there's so many things that happen to people when they get older of course their health deteriorates and the medical bills start flowing and flooding in and um i'm glad this is out there and so this this was something that uh uh there's so many so many more people that need to know about it and the amount of money they can raise. Now, how does it work? So like, does the person who buys my life insurance, are they still waiting around for me to die?

Is that how they get their payout? Yeah, I'll touch on that. So basically, the investors, the capital that are in the life settlement space, basically, they're going to buy the insurance policy, whether it's a $ a hundred thousand dollar policy, and that's the minimum or a $50 million policy. And everywhere in between, if you're 65 and older, you can look at selling your policy and what's known as a life settlement, no matter what type of policy you own, it's usually a universal life or a convertible term, but these buyers do, they take them and they basically warehouse them. They pay the premiums going forward, whether your life expectancy is two years or 22 years. And that's kind of the mortality, if you want to call it my industry, the buyers are purchasing policies on

someone has a life expectancy of anywhere from a couple of years to as long as 20 or 22 years. They take that policy, they make all future premiums, they pay the insurer, the owner of that policy, a cash settlement for the right to purchase their policy. And then that portfolio pays a return over time. So that's kind of the mechanics of how and why a buyer would buy it. They plug in an internal rate of return that they expect based on a client's mortality and based on premiums going forward of that policy that they're buying. Now they're going to be driving by the house and making sure I eat kale and stuff? That's a good thing. When you sell

your policy in the contract, it does say that the buyer has the right to contact you, but I got to tell you, the buyers we work with, they own thousands of policies. These are big institutions. You've seen some of the names on television. They don't necessarily have the time to follow up on each insured.

They have ways to find out when insured passes, but by and large, they spy the policy, they take it over, they hand you your check, and you, the insured, you, the owner, you run off and do whatever you want with that money, whether it's medical care or a vacation or whatever it be, you do what you want to do. A lot of people- I'm blown into Vegas, man. I say a lot of people, they'll go to Vegas, they use it to reinvest into another financial product, whether that be an annuity or long-term care,

whatever it is. But we see a lot of that taking place. Someone's on their life insurance, their kids are off, they're doing great. Mom and dad, get rid of your insurance. They'll take that policy

and invest the money into an annuity. We did a case a few years ago, the guy had a $10 million term policy. Well, that's worth zero. If you surrender it, it's worth zero. If you surrender, it's worth zero. But along we came, we found a buyer to give the client a half a million dollars. He immediately sat down with his advisor and wrote him annuity. So that's the scenario we see every day.

There you go. Now, you mentioned two figures. Do you need to have a policy worth $100,000 minimum? Correct, yes. Do you sell it it and then you said 65 or older is is that the age you have well i i can i can take a stab at this so the answer is we that there's a word called viatical settlements that sometimes is is crossed over into life settlements that the vertical is purely a definition of life expectancy. So someone who has a terminal and or chronic illness with a life expectancy of 24 months

or less in some states, 36 months or less, that is called a vaticle settlement. Let me take you back to that age question. If a person is 52 and has incurable stage four cancer of whatever, that now can sell their policy in the life settlement marketplace. What we pitch, though, in those situations, and Mark can speak to this too, is we don't think you should sell your policy if you've got a high offer and a life expectancy of less than 24 months, because it's only a matter of time before your family gets the full death benefit. So if you can afford to keep it and you're not using it for a specific purpose for medical care or some type of a – Vegas.

Well, Vegas. Or going overseas to get some experimental therapy not available in the United States, you can do that. So that's, but the beauty of that is, is those folks come to us and we're getting ready to either lose the policy because most of the time they can't afford it because they're dealing with a cancer. And as you know, in America today, health insurance is horrible and expenses inside of hospitals for treatments are insane. They're going bankrupt trying to keep themselves alive. So this is, this is a bridge to that end. There you go. I mean, definitely the more opportunities people can have. I mean, it's hard when you get old, man.

You know, I think most people think, you know, social security is going to be a really sweet deal, and they start seeing their checks, and they're like, oh, this is all the right. What happened? Yeah. Yeah, I recently had a case. It was a younger gentleman, which, you is all right. What happened? Yeah. Yeah. I recently had a case. It was a younger gentleman, which pulls on your heartstrings. He was late 50s,

had a term policy nearing his conversion period ending. He could have converted it and paid significantly higher premiums for a permanent policy, or he could start to go to the annual renewable term premium schedule, which that gets out of control. Now, this client had a very shortened life expectancy, anywhere from a year to six years. This is a $5 million policy. Our offer was $4 million. He was the type that said, I will outlive everybody's life expectancy. So we present them with the facts. And a lot of times when you, not a lot of times, every time when you do a life settlement, you get the most comprehensive view of why it makes sense to sell your policy,

or maybe not because we come back to you and say, listen, we did mortality underwriting. You've got an average life expectancy of two years, 10 years, 12 years, 20 years, whatever it is, we share that. Here's your life settlement offer. Here's your cash surrender value from the insurance carrier. So take a look at all three of these options. Do you want to pay premiums for this period of time? Do you want to take a life settlement offer over and above your cash surrender? Or do you want to sit on the policy and keep paying premiums or maybe take a loan out against the policy? So we're just one more option for people. We kind of hammer that into people that we're just an option. People don't need to run out and sell their policy in every instance.

Absolutely not. If you need your life insurance, keep it. But if you're at that period and point in time in your life that you go, I'm done, you should definitely be looking into a life settlement. Party time in Vegas, nerd. These are crazy. I want to come see Chris. He keeps mentioning party time in Vegas.

I think we get along. He's got a party coming up in two and a half weeks, I think. I'm cashing out my life insurance policy. I'm putting it all on red on roulette, man. I'm spinning that wheel. No, don't do that, people. These are jokes. Please don't do that.

God, I've seen that happen. So there's some interesting numbers you guys provided me. This is the 2023 LISA Members Annual Market Survey, Data Collection Survey. And LISA is the Life Insurance members annual market survey, data collection survey. And LISA is the Life Insurance Settlement Association. $770 million have been paid. This is, I guess, in 2023 to consumers from LISA members for the sale of their unwanted life insurance policies. $250,500 in more Americans' pockets on average.

Five times higher than the cash to render values, $610 million than the amount consumers would have received if their life insurance policies had lapped. That's quite the figure. $610 million. Did I make that clear? Maybe I just said $610. 3,100 life settlement transactions completed and 1.33 million average amount of net death benefit per policy sold.

Those are some pretty staggering, enticing figures. Yeah, you forgot one. And Rob kind of alluded to, he mentioned how much life insurance is out there and how much is surrendered and how much we get to look at. There's around 500,000 life insurance policies that get surrendered every year just on seniors. And as you said, Chris, there's only about 3,100 that we bought last year. So there's this massive disconnect. My industry is buying 3,100 policies, 3,000, 4,000, but there's 500,000 that end up in a lapse or surrender every year just on

seed. We can't buy every one of those, but if we buy a fraction of those and give that client two times, three times, five times, seven times their cash surrender, where's the fault in that? Now,

some of the insurance carriers, they'll tell you there's fault, but I don't know how they logistically can prove that. Because again, on every life settlement transaction, when you sell your policy, you're getting more than what the insurance carrier will give you. Period. End of story. And it's important to clarify what you guys are telling people.

You know, this is what made it so it makes an asset. I guess there was a Supreme Court decision that basically ensured that. 1911. 1911 1911 supreme court uh grigsby russell basically said a life insurance policy is an asset and could be treated just like any other asset and that's well all you're doing in a life settlement transaction is you're changing the owner and the beneficiary from you the trust whoever owns it to a third party to a accredited investment capital institution a hedge fund a pension fund who is buying your product.

That's all you're doing. You're sending paperwork in to the caret says, hey, I'm not going to own my policy anymore or the trust is not going to own my policy anymore. We're changing it to XYZ buyer. And in exchange for that, I'm getting some kind of a cash offer. There you go. And you can get those kids who don't call you anymore off the thing too.

Cut them out of your will and get them off your life insurance. There you go. Yeah, everyone is made aware. Probably Rob was going to say something. When you do a life settlement, everyone that's attached to the policy is made aware. If you're the beneficiary, if you're the trustee of the trust, you're the insured, whoever, everyone signs off on that. That way the advisor, no one can come back to the advisor and say,

hey, you sold mom and dad's policy. What the hell were you thinking? Well, you'll go, well, look, you signed the contract saying it was okay. So to Chris's point, to that exact point, Chris, this is better for the kids. The kids are shown mom and dad are selling life insurance policy. Their first argument is, wait a minute, that's my money. And they go, great, they're not paying the premiums anymore. You should pay the premiums.

They're like, oh, we're not paying the premiums. And then the settlement is consummated. So that's how it goes. There you go. Now, do the kids, if the kids are on the life insurance policy, they don't have to sign off on it, right, to change the beneficiary? Or do they? Oh, yeah, they do. They were the beneficiary, and they changed to another third person.

Oh, wow. Do they ever put up a fight in that case? Sometimes, but it usually comes down to would you like a little bit of the money we're gonna get in the settlement or nothing on the default yeah exactly and they have the they have the right to say no and if they say no then they've got to start stroking the check for the premiums every month or every year and uh i don't know many transactions and we do thousands a year many transactions where the kids all of a sudden pop up and say, no,

because they've already discussed this with mom and dad, typically, or the trust. They've already said, Hey, I don't need this policy anymore. Do we have another option? And boom,

here we come and hand them a check for a hell of a lot more. Most of the parents need the money for health and health issues or care issues. Like I said, a lot more, I can't remember the stats, but there's a lot more caretaking of elderly parents going on in kids' homes now where they're having the parents move in with them and they're taking care of them.

Alzheimer's, dementia, all these sort of things. A lot of times they can't afford, you know, I have a sister who's in a care center. She has MS and now she has dementia as well. And she's been in the care centers for, I don't know, 10, 15 years. And these care centers, man, they charge. Woo-hoo. They charge a hell of a dollar. It's an insane business, and it's expensive.

And I guess that's what is a lot of people taking care of their family. And plus, you love your family, and the care centers really are awful, man. So to your point, Chris, baby boomers represent the biggest age band and the most life insurance purchased by an age band, probably every United States. Every eight seconds, someone turns 65. That's going to continue for the next 15 years.

So when you think about your point to how much does retirement community cost, assisted living, and use touched on memory care, the average cost of memory care is almost like checking into the Four Seasons for the year and buying the most expensive suite and staying there all year and they'll be at the same cost. So you're saying, well, how does someone afford that? Well,

guess who affords that? Wealthy people. Guess who's in the assisted living business right now? Marriott. Okay. Bonvoy. Four Seasons. All of the highest end hotels you can possibly think of are all in it because

that's the move. You're talking about, I want to go from my house without my kids and move in. So that leaves the 1% are taken care of. So how does the people in that 2% to 5% get into those homes? Well, they sell their life insurance policies. That's what it's going to take. There you go. I was pulling up, let's see, the annual cost for caregivers tasks or supplies average more than 7,200 bucks per year on reasons why to consider

moving your elderly parent into a home. It could be as much as $10,000 per year. And then of course, if they're like my sister where they need help showering bathing um getting cleaned up uh you know my sister makes two to three people that she needs to have help or shower it's quite the operation um and and so even if you're trying to do caregiving from home it can be very expensive and stuff so there's a lot of different things that are on the table there as people get older i know one thing we heard from people during COVID was a lot of people cashed out their 401ks and different things and just went, you know what? I mean, I had a guy on the show, I think he was 55 or something. He cashed out his big 401ks and all his retirement programs. And

he'd basically done the math based on his genetics that he might have a good five or ten years in the can on a run and that was probably going to be it and and he was like i'm gonna go tour the world and do my life and burn through this money and have fun and a lot of people in covid kind of took a they kind of took their lives and you know a lot of people retired early that were boomers and Gen Xers. And so this gives people more options to be able to delve into the potentials there. What are some other questions or concerns or different things that people ask you about these policies maybe we haven't touched on in the show? I think we've touched on a lot.

I mean, we touched on the minimum age, 65, the minimum amount to sell your policies, a hundred grand. We've touched on how there's sign off across the board. If you're going to sell your policy, everybody that's attached to the policy is going to sign off and okay it. You know, the biggest thing, the biggest challenge of our industry, and we alluded to this and talked about is education. 90% of the time, no one is telling their senior client about a life settlement. And, you know, some of that is just lack of education. Some of that is because the parent companies, broker dealers have said, oh, no, life settlements. Years and years ago, it was a horrible idea to borrow the cash value out of your policy.

Well, that doesn't exist anymore. Our industry is still kind of there. We're getting there to where everyone goes, you know what? Life settlements aren't a bad thing. It's just an option. If you don't need your insurance, why are you not exploring this option? That's true. When all of these facts and figures are thrown in front of you, and the facts and figures

is that nine times out of 10 on life settlement, you're going to get two to seven times the carrier's value. So why wouldn't you be looking at this? So I think we've covered a lot. Rob, you had something? I was just going to say, Chris, every deal is a snowflake. So, for example, someone could come to us and say, okay, I've got, make it up, a million dollars. They still want life insurance.

So they say, can I split the policy in two, keep 500 and sell 500? The answer is yes. Can I sell all of it and get what's called a retained death benefit, meaning that the buyer will put them on, record at the carrier, a percentage of the death benefit as a percentage. So when and if they die, their family gets the death benefits. They've killed two birds and one stone. They still have life insurance for burial needs, et cetera, but they're relieved of that income that they're spending on premiums. Same with the splitting the policy in two. It's just making the premium more affordable, keeping life insurance on your own, and then selling, using that cash, if you will, from the sale of the other half. So those are things the life settlement's got to figure out.

How can we get better? So Mark's touched on things that we didn't really describe this. So Mark said 22-year life expectancy. Well, 10 or 15 years ago, 22-year life expectancies we couldn't sell. No one was buying 22-year life expectancy. Mark also mentioned pension funds. Guess who buys 22-year life expectancies? Pension funds because their liquidity needs are so far in the future that they'd rather buy that policy on that insured that's got no impairments,

hold that policy. This is the important thing I'm about to tell you. Hold that policy to such point in time that there is a health change. And then they resell that policy, much like the mortgage market in the tertiary market, when they can get an increase for what they paid and make a profit along the way. So these policies aren't just buy and hold in some cases, they're also buy and then potentially traded. And that's what, that's what's make the life expectancies, excuse me,

the life settlement industry grow because of that flexibility. Once you buy the asset, it's not stuck in a shelf. You can do, you can do other things with it. There you go. Well, the only resistance I can see this is,

uh, I know that some of my married men friends, I'm pretty sure their wives are putting arsenic in their coffee every day, so they probably don't want to see the policies told. So there's that. From the audience, Tammy in the house, I can understand why insurance agents don't take advantage of this more. They're missing out.

Do you guys do a lot of reach out and education to? Tammy, I know you. We know the answer to this. They're lazy. I mean, I know you. We know the answer to this. You're lazy. I mean, I'm not picking on you insurance agents. We get it. You understand that you sell life insurance and you've had it hammered into your head. You sell more life insurance and your carrier, I won't pick on the carriers out there, but you know who you are. They also hammered your head that, hey, life settlements are a bad bad idea we'd much rather have that policy lapse or surrender and we don't have to pay a death benefit well

why more agents are doing this number one it's lack of education number two is they just and i shouldn't have said lazy but yeah it is some of the time there's too lazy they don't bring the the option up to their client which is ridiculous especially when you give your client five times a surrender amount you do make a commission on a life settlement sale. And then you take that money that you just got in a life settlement and you help the client reinvest into something. It seems like a no brainer if I'm an insurance agent or a financial advisor that I should be bringing this option up every single time. So Tammy, I know Tammy, her and I have done some communication, but bottom line, it's really just lack of education.

We're such a young industry, and it doesn't come to the forefront of people's minds when their client... And a lot of times, clients don't tell their life insurance agent. They just let the policy go, and then the insurance agent looks down and says, they let the policy go. Oh, well. Well, this is why we do what we're doing here. We hope that every single client, you don't have to go through your life insurance agent, your financial advisor to do a life settlement. You can come to a company direct like us. We put all the buyers in the same room. We let these buyers hammer it out until we have the best offer, and then we give you that best offer.

But by and large, advisors, this isn't common practice quite yet. It will be. It will be in the coming years, but it's't common practice quite yet. It will be. It will be in the coming years, but it's just not there quite yet. There you go. So if you're out there, insurance agents, check into this and reach out to these guys and find out more because it's definitely interesting. And Tammy's throwing some stuff in here. You guys did a fantastic job, by the way. It's an endless source of fascination for me.

Thanks, Tammy. It's an endless source of fascination for me. Thanks, Sammy. It's great to know. And if I run into elder people, I can be like, hey, here's a great way to make some money. They're on the side and go to Vegas. We're coming to Vegas. I might work out some deals with some hotels. What's his face down there? That one guy.

What's the one rich guy? I think he sold the hotels I'll work it out with Steve Wynn me and him will get a deal or something there you go if you can put a room full of thousand seniors that own life insurance we'll come out Chris we'll do a show with you we'll educate the masses

about life settlements plus I need a sugar mama so if I can find that hook me up there. That might work out good. So anything more we need to cover, guys, before we go out to educate people on what you guys do? No, man. I think we've hit it all.

We've talked about our industry, where it stemmed from, and who qualifies for a life settlement, what types of insurance. Bottom line, if you're a senior or if you're a kid out there and your mom and dad own life insurance, if you're a trustee of a trust-owned policy and you got it in the back of your head that your life insurance has met its needs and you're thinking about letting it go, you absolutely need to look into a life settlement. You need to go to Lisa or Industry Association. They'll show you all the buyers, all the brokers like ourselves or come to us direct and we'll show you, we'll walk you all the buyers, all the brokers like ourselves. Or come to us direct, and we'll show you.

We'll walk you through the process. And the good news, we don't charge a fee to do the life settlement valuation. It's a free service. We collect the medical records. We collect mortality reporting. We do all the stuff that costs us money. Don't get me wrong. But if we come to you with an offer, whether it's $5,000 or $550, and you don't like it, you say, thank you very much.

And you tuck that offer away. And a year from now, if you say, well, hey, let's go explore that again, hey, we'll look at it again for you. So, yeah. Chris, I just tell people, I learned this almost like the first week I was starting this in 1993, is we put life into life insurance. You put it back into life insurance. Because life insurance, if you really think about it, in order for you to participate in it, you have to die. So this is a chance for you to take advantage of the life insurance premiums you've paid all those years, take some of that cash back out,

and go to Vegas or whatever it is you want to do or whatever your financial needs are at the time. So we're putting life back into life insurance. Go cruise. Go see the world. Go enjoy your retirement, man. You earned it. You know, you raise them bratty kids

that don't call you anymore, and they're spoiled, and, you know, they never call to say I love you. They only call when they want to borrow money. Eh, spend that money. Have some good times. So let's get a plug in here.

You guys have a newsletter and a podcast. Let's get a plug in here. You guys have a newsletter and a podcast. Let's get a plug in for that so people can learn more for your podcast. Yeah, we've got a podcast. If you go to our LinkedIn site, whether it's myself, Mark Murky, or Rob Haney, you'll see us on there, and it'll direct you to it. We've done seven different podcasts, and they're from different perspectives, seller's perspective, a buyer's perspective. We did a life expectancy company perspective. So we kind of give people a full roundabout view of life settlements from every different angle. And we do letters that we send out myself, Rob, a couple times a month.

So if you ever want more information about this topic, find us on LinkedIn, send us a connection. You can send me an email at markm.lisettlements.com. Rob can tell you his. And we're happy to continue to educate people about this option. And that's what it is. It's just an option for your life insurance when it's come to that point that you said, hey, it's done what I needed to do. Do I have another option? There you go.

Thank you very much, guys, for coming on the show. Go ahead and round out. No, no, just really quick. The website is www.lisettlements.com. You can find the podcast there as well as the newsletters and a lot of other helpful information. As always, you can contact myself or Mark. My email is rob at lisettlements.com. There we go.

That's it. Perfect. Thanks, Chris. Thank you, guys, for coming to the show. We really appreciate it, Mark and Rob. It's been fun. Let's go to Vegas. Thank you, Chris. We'll be in Vegas. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to

Goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Foss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter. That thing grows like a weed. I didn't even know there was that many people on LinkedIn that were still alive. Go to the 130,000 LinkedIn group and all the other things we do on the Chris Foss Show. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

And we'll see you guys next time.