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Tuesday 8 July 2014

What It Means To Be A Life Settlement Broker

By Rosella Campbell


Life settlement entails selling ones life assurance policy to a 3rd party at a value greater than the surrender value but normally less than that in net death benefit. The decision to sell a policy may have been motivated by many reasons. First and foremost, the policy owner might not be in need or might not want his or her policy anymore. It might also be motivated by the fact that the owner wishes to purchase a different type of policy or perhaps became the policy owner is no longer able to afford the monthly or annual premiums. Policy owners learn how to their settle their policies from attorneys, family, friends, financial ad visors or even from a life settlement broker.

In general, these specialists are people who, for compensation, negotiate, solicit or offer themselves to negotiate or solicit settlement contracts. In states, just like life settlement providers and investors, individuals must be licensed to work as brokers. Furthermore, they must undertake education courses.

A broker will shop a policy to many providers at a certain fee that is normally agreed upon with the seller. This is similar to what is commonly done by real estate brokers (soliciting multiple offers for another persons home)Brokers are obliged to collect the bids. They help clients evaluate the various offers that are typically grounded on specific criteria like the net yield after commissions have been charged, stability of the funding, offer price and many more.

It is the duty of the broker to collect bids, in evaluating offers based on a certain criteria such as the stability of funding, net yield after the commissions, the offer price and many more.

An understanding of the compensation arrangement is very important when determining whether an individual should engage brokers. The fully disclosed arrangement helps the client determine whether their services will be beneficial.

In states having strict regulations regarding these settlements, a brokers may be subject to stipulated penalties if they violate laws pertaining to privacy, reporting, procedure, disclosure and licensing.

To become a broker in this area, an individual will require specific training in areas like sales skills, capability to calculate or weigh risks, insurance and the capacity to manage offers and bids. This is because these people facilitate the purchasing and selling of life insurance policies between buyers normally investors) and sellers( usually policy owner or the life assurance company at a certain negotiated price. This ultimately has to be accompanied by a license as provided for in the law.

Because this is a relatively new financial practice and there are very many brokers offering these services, finding a legitimate person should be a primary goal. The policy owner can ascertain the transparency of the transaction by demanding all information pertaining the settlement such the buyers and also have a look at their offers which are written.

An important component of the sale should be use of competitive bidding so as to try and ensure the policy gets a competitive and possibly the best offer.

A broker should market your policies to institutional investors who have got experience and can assure you of anonymity and privacy. This helps to curb fraud which has become very rampant in this particular industry. The policy owner can also ensure that the broker has errors and omission insurance that is provided by most well established financial institutions.




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