ARE YOU A CANDIDATE FOR A LIFE SETTLEMENT?
A life settlement is a valuable financial option for policyholders who no longer have a need for their life insurance policies. Instead of lapsing or surrendering a life insurance policy, qualified consumers can now cash in a life insurance policy in a secondary market to receive the fair market value for their asset.
Founded in 2000, Welcome Funds is a professional life settlement broker that is licensed to represent policy owners & negotiate the highest offer from the marketplace on their behalf. We have helped our clients secure more than $1 Billion for the sale of their life insurance policies. It's fast, easy & free to determine if your life insurance policy is eligible for a life settlement.
OUR BUYERS COMPETE TO PURCHASE YOUR POLICY
Welcome Funds negotiates directly in the secondary market where state-licensed financial institutions compete to purchase life insurance policies. Our experienced life settlement negotiation team then creates competition amongst these buyers through an auction process to ensure that the highest offer is secured for our clients.
Over the past 23 years, we have been entrusted by thousands of Americans and their financial advisors to represent their best interests in the life settlement process. Our life settlement team has successfully negotiated over 33,000 life settlement offers on behalf of policyholders. Find out more about how Welcome Funds can help you sell your life insurance policy for cash.
Welcome Funds Frequently Asked Questions
A life settlement enables qualified life insurance policyholders to convert their life insurance coverage into cash by selling it to a state-licensed financial institution. The sale of the policy is similar to the sale of a home or car, all rights, title, and future interest in the asset are legally transferred from the seller to the buyer. The buyer is then responsible for all future premium payments and owns the rights to the future death benefit. These buyers are part of a secondary market for life insurance policies that developed due to the limited options offered by life insurance companies for those consumers who have had changing life circumstances or who could no longer afford their premiums.
Life settlements give consumers a choice, when previously only limited options existed which were dictated by the life insurance company. Now, thanks to the Life Settlement Industry, policyholders have the choice to sell their asset for a fair market value, instead of lapsing a policy with no value received or surrendering it for an amount below fair market value. The life settlement option allows the seller of the life insurance policy to use the proceeds to help pay for long-term care needs, living expenses, or anything else they desire.
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A viatical settlement is a financial transaction in which a lump sum cash payment is made to the owner of a life insurance policy in exchange for the sale of ownership and beneficiary rights to the life insurance policy. Typically, this term is used for transactions involving only terminally ill insureds who have a life expectancy of less than 24 months.
Are Viatical Settlements Taxable?
For those insureds, the viatical settlement proceeds may be considered tax-free. The viatical settlement option allows policy owners to use the proceeds of the sale to help pay for medical bills, living expenses, or anything else they choose.
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The sale of a life insurance policy to a third party was established as a legal right for consumers in 1911 based on the Supreme Court ruling in Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U.S. 149 (1911). Mr. Justice Holmes said it best, "To deny the right to sell except to persons having such an (insurable) interest is to diminish appreciably the value of the contract in the owner's hands." This opinion placed the ownership rights in a life insurance policy on the same legal footing as more traditional investment property such as stocks, bonds, and real estate. As with these other types of property, a life insurance policy can be transferred to another person at the discretion of the policy owner. This decision established a life insurance policy as transferable property that contains specific legal rights, including the right to:
- Name the life insurance policy beneficiary
- Change the beneficiary designation (unless subject to restrictions)
- Assign the life insurance policy as collateral for a loan
- Borrow against the life insurance policy
- Sell the life insurance policy to another party
Although this ruling established the right for life insurance consumers to sell or trade their life insurance policies, the practice did not become common until the late 1980's with the start of the viatical settlement industry, which was the precursor to the life settlement market.