Sam Rosenfeld: Life Settlement an Emerging Asset Class

Sam Rosenfeld, Managing Director of Longevity Mortality Strategies, has written a Wharton white paper on life settlements:

• "Life settlements do not arise from radical new concepts. Grounded in the same financial
  modeling as life insurance and annuities, their value is in creating a secondary market for
  life insurance policies where there was none."
• "The fundamental offering provided by life settlements is that they provide greater cash settlements for policies than the life insurers themselves, when the policyholder needs as much value as possible from their asset."
• These instruments are creating the need for better longevity models (better models for predicting longevity / mortality); this has value for individuals, their financial planners, etc.
• Synthetics and indices are emerging
• "It is a safe prediction that by the end of 2012, the key elements of portfolio diversification for sophisticated investors will be equities, bonds, commodities, real estate and longevity."

For a list of other life settlement funds, check out: http://www.rollscritique.com/insurance-linked-securities