The senior settlement is the best defense against the current recession
Everyone knows that the American financial landscape has completely changed. People used to be able to know that they could work for forty to fifty years and if they saved, planned, and invested wisely that they'd be able to retire comfortably. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case. The recession that began in 2007 and 2008 destroyed the retirement plans of a lot of senior citizens who now are in a position of having to keep working or selling off assets or finding an alternative method of covering their expenses.
The problem is particularly noticeable by considering the unavailability of work for a lot of seniors combined with the rise in healthcare and prescription drug costs, even when factoring in everything that is available from Social Security and Medicare. Fortunately a lot of seniors are sitting on whole life insurance policies that they have continued to pay on for years and years. Many of them no longer have young children or a spouse that is relying on their income, so the insurance policy is worth more to them now than it would be after they are deceased. As most people are aware, typical whole life insurance policies have a cash value when they are surrendered. Insurance companies don't offer as much as they possibly can because for years there were no senior settlement options to compete against what the insurance companies present.
Tough economic times demand a solution like the senior settlement
The fact is, the cash surrender value from insurance companies is substandard to what is available on the open market. That is what senior settlement companies do, they are essentially pricing a mature adult's life insurance policy on the open market as opposed to just being determined by an insurance company's actuarial tables when the policy was purchased. With the downfall in the economy, the demand for senior settlement companies has increased by a huge factor which has increased the number of these types of third party companies. With that, each of these companies must compete against each other, which leaves the consumer as the winner in the long run. Statistics have shown that more than half of the current life insurance policies that are held by people over seventy years of age could expect to earn more money from a senior settlement than they would from a cash surrender value.
In a lot of examples the difference between the two offers is significantly different. There have been some shocking results, particularly among the cases where senior settlements have paid $100,000 more than what the insurance company would have. These differences are the most pronounced among the oldest seniors, the exact portion of the population who need it the most. These are the people who have been hardest hit in this current economic downturn. They are also the people who have the fewest options in returning to work or from other investments. As time goes on, a senior settlement will eventually force insurance companies to adapt and begin to offer more money on cash surrender value deals. If not, with greater awareness of the senior settlement option, people will go to where more money can be found.
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