I would have to say the following resources are great places to start…

Life Settlement – LifeSettlementInfo.com is packed with info, has an updated blog, and always adding more and more content.

Life Settlement Information -  The only directory on the web I found that lists life settlement professionals and life settlement companies.

Life Settlement News – Updated often with the latest Life Settlement News and press.

Life Settlement Fraud – Keep up to date with shady practices, fraudulant investments, and companies that may not be keeping your best interest.

Life Settlement Jobs – Jobs, careers, and employment in the Life Settlement Industry.

Life Settlement Marketing – Get into the Life Settlement Business and generate leads, prospects, and commissions.

First you need to get a life settlement application from a life settlement broker or funding company. Filling out the information is pretty self explanatory, but it is important to be accurate and complete while filing it out.

Once you have the application, you then need to get as much information about your life insurance policy. Including premiums, face amount, policy number, issue date, beneficiary, carrier, type of policy, etc.. If you don’t have a copy of your policy, now would be a good time to request one directly from the carrier.

Next you want to make sure you have information about your current and previous health. Most life settlement companies would like to see the previous 3 years of medical records. You can request this yourself from your doctor and send in with the application, or simply provide the names and contact information of your doctor in the application. Make sure to include any specialists you may have visited in the past 3 years.

Finally, complete and sign the application, if you are going to send to multiple companies you may be required to fill out a few different applications. Keep your information handy so that you can speed the process up. After completing and sending in your application, check with the company you are working to verify they received the application and ask them to review and immediately request any missing items. If items are missing it can slow down the processing, so it is important to find out quickly what they need.

Prepare to wait 30-90 days while your Life Settlement case is on the market to see if a settlement is available.

Find a: Life Settlement Company

Use our: Life Settlement Calculator

Grant Shellhammer is an expert and writer in the Life Settlement Industry.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Grant_Shellhammer

This company must be an  industry leader in life settlement compliance and regulatory affairs and  the companies must provide seamless, one-stop life settlement processing for both fixed and variable life settlement cases.  Many these days are looking for a detail-oriented, extremely organized and outgoing person to fill the position of Case Manager.

Primary Responsibilities:

1. Interface with and service both external (field agents/registered reps) and internal (sales team) customers through the new business process.

2. Responsible for all interaction with the sales unit regarding status updates of pending business.

3. Answer all questions and concerns regarding case status.

4. Collect and analyze incoming new business applications.

5. Input and store all case activity and details into internal and external data base tracking systems.

6. Notify Case Administrator to order Attending Physician Statements, Illustrations, and Verifications of Coverage.

7. Notify Licensing department to conduct licensing check; receive Agent licensing confirmation or assist agent in completing appropriate licensing for case.

8. Review, communicate and continuously track all incomplete and/or other missing required documentation to internal sales team until file is deemed complete and in good order.

9. Promptly acts upon the data received, including informing sales team members and others at the firm, specifying cases that could be affected, and mutually determining courses of action on a case-by-case basis.

10. Quickly, efficiently, ethically, and professionally answers case status questions, including interfacing with other case managers and sales team as well as others in the firm as necessary

11. Consistently and thoroughly keeps data base tracking systems up to date and current with case status updates.

Qualifications:

- The candidate must have a High School diploma or equivalent. Some college education or a degree is preferred

- Life insurance or life settlement industry knowledge required

- Candidate must require strong effective problem solving and customer service skills

- Experience and passion for building long term business relationships

- Skilled in working within a fast paced environment under continual and multiple deadlines, maintaining professionalism under pressure

- Ability to extend and apply individual skills and initiative to multiple sales teams

- Experience in managing information flow and ensuring consistent accuracy

- Superior attention to detail

- Excellent research and quantitative skills

- Aptitude to learn and master proprietary software

- Excellent relationship management skills

- Excellent oral and written communication skills

- Competency in Microsoft Word and Excel

- Life Insurance license required (within first year of employment)

Companies will provide you with policy owners and insureds who have been pre-qualified.  Prospective sellers will have called a call center or completed a questionnaire on our web site to determine their qualification.  The call center will inform you to download a pre-populated application.   As a contract application taker you will make an appointment and go to the policyowner/insured to complete the application, gather signed release forms and provide sample documents.   Completed application packages will be sent to the home office for all processing and follow up.

Application takers must be professional, have strong communication skills and life insurance knowledge.   Ad campaign begins at the end of August and, if successful, will run for 120 days or longer.   Applicants will be interviewed and successful applicants will be paid for one half day of training before beginning

Resources Available Online Thru End of July

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Further demonstrating the need for expert information on the life settlement market from both financial professionals and investors, this year’s Life Settlement Awareness Month (LSAM)® garnered record participation.

Motivated by the benefits that life settlements can offer clients as well as investors, nearly 1,000 financial, investment, legal and actuarial professionals participated in the month-long educational series. LSAM – reports not only greater attendance than in years past, but also a more diverse group of attendees. In this fourth year of LSAM, LSS responded to the growing demand and presented a more robust curriculum, including an investor track geared towards accredited investors and institutional buyers.

“We are so pleased at the number of professionals that participated in our LSAM events this year,” said Larry Simon, president and CEO of LSS. “These results, coupled with a significant increase in investors who are investigating the asset class, reinforce that the long term industry demand and growth trends remain in tact despite the current financial crisis.”

Simon added that LSS is dedicated to providing financial, insurance and investment professionals with free educational resources year-round, and will keep all recordings and presentation slides from this year’s LSAM events on the resources page of the LSAM website through the end of July.

Throughout June, LSS presented nine training courses and four panels of experts on topics including life settlement fundamentals, advanced case studies, and strategies for financial and insurance professionals. Also included in this series, was a three-part panel series geared toward investors that covered investor benefits, risks, structures, longevity, taxation, industry trends, distressed asset strategies and more.

This release is not, and should not be construed as, a solicitation to buy or sell any securities, and neither Life Settlement Solutions, Inc. nor its respective affiliates provides legal, accounting or tax advice. Nothing contained herein constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a life settlement, portfolio of life settlements, or any other asset or security.

¹ Access to certain LSAM events is limited to “qualified institutional buyers” within the meaning of Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and “accredited investors” as defined in Rule 501(a) of Regulation D under the Securities Act.

Source of article is Business Wire, and Google.com

“I can think of 12 to 15 cases in the last 12 months in which investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars on these transactions,” said Larry Rybka, president of ValMark Securities Inc. in Akron, Ohio. “The SEC definitely needs to be more involved in that area.”

Although the SEC’s involvement in the life settlement market already comes into play for variable-life-insurance policies as well as the securitization of policies, a letter sent recently by SEC Chairman Mary L. Schapiro to Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis., who is chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, suggested that the commission will also look at the registration of life settlement providers and brokers. The SEC declined to comment further.

Life settlements involve the sale of an insurance policy on a person’s life to a third-party investor.

The SEC’s role in life settlements came up before Mr. Kohl’s committee during an April 29 hearing on the issue. There, he had state regulators and representatives from the life insurance industry and two life settlement firms speak about fraudulent schemes — such as stranger-originated life insurance practices — and asked them to formulate ways to improve regulatory oversight.

Some federal paths into life settlements have already been forged.

For example, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. of New York and Washington covered life settlements in its Notice to Members 06-38 in 2006. The notice discussed the use of suitability standards and due diligence for broker-dealers who recommend the sale of an existing variable-life-insurance policy to a third party.

That rule, along with landmark enforcement proceedings in SEC v. Lydia Capital LLC — a case that involved investments in fraudulent life settlements — have paved the way for the commission to step in, perhaps as early as this year, Mr. Rybka said.

State regulators have addressed life settlement problems by inspecting providers and transactions that they think are suspicious, but they would like a uniform solution for issues such as consumer and investor disclosures and licensing.

There is no definition in the Securities Act of 1933 of life settlements, and a 1996 case in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, SEC v. Life Partners Inc., led to a decision that the purchase of settlements for private clients isn’t the same as a securities transaction.

However, a number of states have pursued cases challenging the decision. For example, Fred J. Joseph, securities commissioner in Colorado, pursued Waco, Texas-based Life Partners Inc. in civil court in 2007 for selling unregistered securities in his state.

In that case, a Colorado state appeals court said it was “not persuaded” by SEC v. Life Partners and ruled against the company.

Now in Colorado, third-party investment interests in a life insurance policy must be registered and sold by individuals who are securities-licensed.

Mr. Joseph, who is also president of the North American Securities Administrators Association Inc. in Washington, said that the majority of states consider investments in life settlements to be securities transactions.

“Maybe I’m promoting the fact that we need to make it clear at the federal level that this is a security,” he said. Once the SEC does this, uniform licensing mandates for the parties involved will have to follow, Mr. Joseph added.

Also, in the past, life settlement providers haven’t responded well to probes from state regulators. Inquiries from securities or insurance commissioners have led to lawsuits against the regulators, with the firms disputing the commissioners’ jurisdiction.

Experts think that the SEC could handle the additional regulatory load of life settlements, but it would likely need to work with state regulators to be effective. Federal intervention would likely require cooperation from states, said Stephan R. Leimberg, chief executive of Leimberg Information Services Inc., a Fernandina Beach, Fla., financial legislation and regulation analysis service.

“No state person wants to have the [feds] take over, but it’s clear from the Madoff scandal and the subprime problems that the agencies need to cooperate with each other,” he said.

Mr. Joseph said state securities regulators do generally cooperate with the SEC, but that the NASAA hasn’t been in touch with the commission on how the two would work in tandem on life settlements.

However, opponents of federal regulation say that the SEC would be incapable of handling complaints directly, as state commissioners do. The system — in which states adopt life settlements model acts from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners of Kansas City, Mo., or the National Conference of Insurance Legislators in Troy, N.Y. — establishes licensing and disclosure requirements without help from the federal government, they say.

“You would have a bifurcated system and confusion on how things would play out” with a federal system, said Susan Nolan, executive director of the NCOIL. “The legislators are close to the consumers buying the products, so they’re the best ones to regulate,” she said.

The Internal Revenue Service recently published guidance on taxing life settlements — both the lump sum that the seller receives and the income tax that the buyer pays upon receiving the insured’s death benefit. The move signals that the federal government is ready to act, Mr. Rybka said.

“Remember that Ms. Schapiro was the big senior executive in Finra and that this was her No. 2 issue when she was there,” he said.

“She’s been looking at it for two years,” Mr. Rybka said. “I expect something significant from the SEC on this.”

E-mail Darla Mercado at dmercado@investmentnews.com.

Source: Investment News

So how do Life Settlements from LPHI measure up to our panels’ characteristics of the ideal investment? Let’s review:

a.    Safety
On the risk continuum, Life Settlements offer the equivalent safety somewhere between money markets and investment grade bonds.

b.    Security
LPHI and its escrow affiliate, Dunnam & Dunnam are regulated by the SEC and operate under the oversight of the Texas Board of Banking, national banking laws, and Texas Department of Insurance. They are audited by Murrell, Hall, McIntosh & Co., PLLP and KPMG, PLLP respectively. LPHI maintains an “arms length” policy for its investors so all policies and funds are held in trust. LPHI does not touch the investor’s money.

c.    Performance
Since inception Life Settlements as structured by LPHI has produced historic double digit returns with an averaged ROI over 15% (past performance does not guarantee future results). This financial product has a battle tested track record through both bull and bear markets.

d.    Diversification
Life Settlements are the ultimate diversification tool due to the fact that they are uncorrelated to the stock market, oil prices, interest rates and even terrorism. Life Settlements, as the cornerstone of any diversified portfolio, offer a hedge during economic downturns as well as during periods of market stability. Life Settlements serve as a better uncorrelated hedge then bonds and have the potential to generate double digit returns. They should be the FOUNDATION of every investor’s portfolio.

e.    Mainstream
For many years Life Settlements were only available to institutional investors. Financial icons including Berkshire Hathaway, AIG, ABN AMRO, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Deutsche Bank have invested hundreds of millions in life settlements with the understanding that the return of their principal and return on their principal are the Contractual obligations of highly rated insurance companies. Their pursuit of this market is related to the degree of PROTECTION and the AVOIDANCE of Market and Economic Risk. These institutions involvement provide immense credibility because of the level of due diligence they require of any investment before actually committing their own dollars. Life Settlements presents the rare opportunity for an accredited investor to invest on a level playing field with major institutions.

f.    Win/Win Investment
LPHI provides viable options through the secondary insurance market where none existed before. Senior citizens are released from the burden of high premiums and are provided lump sum payments. In many instances, this much needed capital infusion allows them to live out their remaining years in dignity. We allow seniors the ability to turn a death benefit into a LIFE BENEFIT.

g.    NO Management Fees
All fees associated with Life Settlements are built into the acquisition costs and therefore all of the investor’s money goes to work for them. All your money is invested without paying any management fees or underlying fund expenses in cash or IRA investments. Qualified funds are subject of Custodial fees; typically around $100 to $200 annually.

h.    Liquidity
Life Settlements should be viewed as a medium to long term investment. They are perfect for retirement dollars, college savings funds and cash investments.

i.    Clear Exit Event
While at certain points in time the DOW has yielded double digit returns, even the best exit strategies are formulated on speculation and conjecture. To enjoy increasing returns, one must accept the ever increasing risk of losing principal along with profits. The investor, at his or her discretion, may exit at every policy maturity. The vast majority of investors however, elect to roll over returns into additional policies. Unlike the securities markets, decisions to exit or reinvest in Life Settlements are never predicated on speculation or mere conjecture. Life Settlements are the ultimate AUTO PILOT INVESTMENT.

Life producers, financial planners, estate planners, accountants, attorneys, certified senior advisors and trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients to periodically review their life insurance policies.  There are many situations where it is in the best interest of the policy owner to consider the life settlement option, which can help them eliminate an unnecessary or burdensome asset.

Those who may express doubt about lack of coverage can find solace in purchasing an appropriate replacement insurance policy.  Providing life settlements and replacement insurance will not only benefit your clients, but will provide you with professional expertise, a diversified product offering and a new source of commissionable revenue.

The Life Settlement Process & Timeline

STEP 1
Policy owner or their representative requests a Life Settlement Application Packet by a Life Settlement Broker or Life Settlement Company.

STEP 2
The application is completed along with the requested authorizations. The application includes authorizations to collect medical records and up to date information from the applicant’s insurance carrier about the policy to be sold.

STEP 3 (approximately 3 weeks)
The Life Settlement Firm collects needed information including attending physician  statements, insurance policy copies and illustrations, etc. for review.

STEP 4 (approximately 2 weeks)
After obtaining all medical records, the Life Settlement Firm will order the appropriate life expectancy reports (LEs)

STEP 5 (approximately 2-3 weeks)
The information is submitted to funding organizations to obtain the highest bids possible. Settlement offers are relayed to the policy owner or their representative for acceptance.

STEP 6 (approximately 1 week)
Upon acceptance of an offer, contracts and insurance policy change of ownership documents are forwarded to the policy owner or their representative for review and signatures.

STEP 7 (approximately 2 weeks)
The signed documents are returned to the funding organization. The documents are then forwarded to the insurance company to record the change of ownership.

STEP 8 (approximately 1 weeks)
Upon written verification that changes of ownership and beneficiary have been recorded, settlement funds are wire transferred into the account designated by the policy owner (seller).

At this point the seller has 15 days to change his or her mind and cancel the Life Settlement transaction.

The whole process typically takes 10 to 12 weeks to complete, depending on how long it takes to receive documents such as physician statements or insurance company illustrations or change of ownership.