News

Media Statement

Australian superannuation funds are embracing life settlements.

Life Settlements as a new asset class may seem as an unconventional form of investment. The United States Supreme Court long ago recognized that life insurance had all the ordinary characteristics of property and accordingly constituted an asset that a policy owner could freely convey.

Asset Life responsible manager Ron Board said "that the Australian market is slowly understanding the merits of life settlements as an investment" Mr Board added that it is wise that an Investor before entering this market look at all the options that are available. "There are life settlements and there are life settlements!"

Mr Board said Asset Life had taken its time with its due diligence to ensure that the services they offered to wholesale investors would give the investor comfort and transparency. We have done our research on this asset class and we can advise the best option for our investors looking to diversify into this market.” He further said that all investments have elements of risk and concern correlated to returns. A good manager will mitigate where possible against those risks. 

Mr Board said the life settlement market represented a simple alternative investment platform, particularly for institutional investors shaken by recent uncertainty in the current world’s economic climate.

Mr Board said that the opportunity exists because more and more American seniors have become more aware of their options relating to unwanted life insurance policies and that they are not limited to surrendering the policy. It is clear that as long as insurance carriers do not provide fair value for unwanted insurance policies informed policyholders will take their policies to the secondary market, to get a better deal. Life Settlements have provided thousands of U.S. policy owners with more cash beyond their cash surrender value and the industry is poised for additional growth, propelled by a financially sophisticated and aging population where seniors are discovering that an economically sensible exit strategy from unwanted life insurance policies does indeed exist.

Mr Board said that the life settlement industry can be complex to the unwary investor but when fully informed offers opportunities for investors in an interesting uncorrelated asset class with promising returns.

Asset Life through their US structure has access to large volumes of policies that they can target in order to meet the purchasing parameters of their Investor.