| Creating awareness about life settlements is beginning to impact the marketplace in a positive, measurable way.
LISA, the Life Insurance Settlement Association, recently released the results of its 2025 member survey which showed that in the last five years, life settlements through LISA members provided consumers with $3.6 billion — $3 billion more than insurance companies would have paid through surrender.
In 2025, consumers received 9 times the cash surrender value through life settlements. The average life settlement payout was $212,066 while the average cash value of those policies was only $24,360. And – let’s not forget that convertible term policies, which rarely have cash surrender value, make great candidates for a life settlement too.
A total of $626.6 million was paid to consumers spread out over 2,955 transactions, a 9.4% increase over the 2,699 completed transactions in 2024. This payout means that $554.6 million more was received by policy holders than if they had surrendered their policies.
It’s critical for you to keep your clients informed about their policies to avoid missing out on a life settlement. Once a policy lapses it is no longer a candidate, and once a term policy’s conversion period expires, it generally is no longer a candidate either.
The data shows that life settlements continue to provide an increasingly important opportunity for policyholders who are about to lapse or surrender their policy. With that said, it’s important to be sure that your clients realize that a life settlement is an alternative to lapse or surrender, not to keeping their policy.
As opportunities come up, or if you have questions, don’t hesitate to give us a call. As we always say, “it can’t hurt to try – – it can only hurt not to. |
