If you're 60 or older with a life insurance policy, you can sell it for a lump sum instead of letting it lapse. Life settlements typically pay 20-40% of the death benefit, giving you cash now rather than losing the policy or getting only its cash value.
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If you are at least 60 years old and you have a life insurance policy that you do not need anymore or can no longer afford, don't let that policy lapse because you can now sell that policy for a lump sum cash payment. It could be any type of life insurance—term, whole life, or universal life—and it could be personal or business coverage. But if you simply cancel the policy or stop paying for it, you either lose all the money you paid into it or settle for the policy's internal cash value. But now there's an alternative. You can sell your policy to a third party for as much as 20 to 40% of the death benefit. It's called a life settlement. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal titled Life Insurance for Sale in a Secondary Market, the idea, which is gaining in popularity among older policyholders, is to raise cash now rather than wait until death. You see, a life insurance policy is a financial