Life settlement solution for top wealth advisors, principled life insurance agents, and fiduciaries.
We enable HNW/UHNW wealth and financial advisors to confidently monetize older clients' unwanted and surplus life insurance, delivering transparent and effective price discovery, expedient execution, charging a rational fee, and ensuring maximum proceeds.
About Us
Who We Are
Experienced capital markets professionals with expertise in the institutional market for in-force life insurance, for seven years with a private equity buyer and since 2016 enabling advisors at top RIAs, various fiduciaries, and principled life insurance advisors to confidently engage the market.
What We Do
Conduct a controlled, disciplined, and intellectually rigorous price discovery process with 20+ high-quality institutional buyers to ensure that your clients receive maximum value for their unwanted and surplus life insurance, pay a rational fee, and consummate the transaction in 60 days.
How We Are Different
We deliver substantively better outcomes – both psychic and financial - in a more transparent, effective, expeditious, confidence-engendering process than any other approach available to policy owners or their advisors – brokers, direct buyers, or single providers.
1/7
If you are not familiar with “life settlements,” it is simply the sale of an in-force life insurance policy, as an alternative to lapse or surrender, for an amount greater than surrender value, by the original owners to a third party that becomes the policy owner, paying premiums and receiving future death benefits.
2/7
Why does it matter to you? 50% of HNW/UHNW HH’s >72 own $1.2T of UL/convertible term insurance, but 85% is subsequently forfeited (40,000/$75B each year), as insureds age and policies' utility declines, for whatever reason. So, at least 40% of your clients who live past 72 are going to need to discuss what to do with a policy – whether purchased for protection or an estate planning objective – that you and they assess no longer makes sense to maintain.
3/7
Although there is a universe of institutional buyers of in-force life insurance that would likely value at least $50 billion of those policies at a significant premium to surrender value, a broken incumbent distribution channel that conducts an ineffective and opaque price discovery process, disguised as "negotiations," and charges egregious commissions, has limited the annual market activity to <$5B of policies, as most advisors simply do no want to engage the channel.
4/7
1908 Advisors was founded to make life settlements a rational option for fee only wealth advisors and other fiduciaries (and best interest-oriented life insurance professionals) with clients who, for whatever reason, assess that they no longer want or need a policy and would prefer the liquidity that a settlement can generate.
5/7
Since 2016, we have helped advisors at top firms around the country monetize clients’ policies at an average of 8x surrender value and 25% of face value, delivering transparent and effective price discovery from a loosely-organized, but regulated universe of ~20 institutional buyers of in-force life insurance, expedient and professional execution, and charge a 7.5% fee (vs. 30%+), enabling you to deliver meaningful service wins and significant proceeds that are an average of 1.8x what the incumbent channel delivers in 60 days (vs. 130+).
6/7
And while we make a living by executing life settlement transactions, we do not advocate for life settlements as much as we do for conscientious wealth advisors, principled life insurance professionals, and various fiduciaries having a responsible, professional, high-quality means to monetize a policy that you and your clients assess is no longer of sufficient utility to maintain or from which they'd prefer the liquidity that a settlement might generate. We serve you and we know that the better we enable you to serve your clients, to include, in some cases, demonstrating that a settlement is not the best answer, the more engagements we will see.
7/7
Thank you for taking a few minutes to peruse our website to learn more about what we do, how different our approach is, and the benefits for you and your clients of those differences.
Death Benefit Face Value
$97,500,000
Premium Wining Bids over Surrender Value
$20,090,000
Net Proceeds to Sellers
$18,500,000
Multiple of Broker Winning Bid
1.3x
Observed Multiple of Broker Net
1.8x
LAST 10 ENGAGEMENTS
DELIVERING A BETTER PROCESS, MORE EFFECTIVE PRICE DISCOVERY, AND GREATER PROCEEDS
Real Service Wins
With an intellectually rigorous, proven price discovery process, based on our experience as buyers for seven years before starting this business and an understanding of how policies are actually valued, that yields substantially higher winning bids than any other means for policy sellers to access buyers of in-force life insurance, coupled with a fee structure that is 1/4 what the brokers charge, your clients receive significantly greater proceeds than any other solution available to policy sellers - importantly, with your consultation, as we are an advisor to you.
Honest, transparent, effective.
We've heard the phrase "Wild West" to describe the incumbent distribution channel of life settlement brokers - it's not an inaccurate description. Since 2016, we've been working to give top conscientious wealth advisors, trust companies, and principled life insurance agents an alternative, delivering a substantive, confidence-engendering means to monetize older clients' unwanted and surplus life insurance.
No more ineffective, protracted price discovery disguised as "negotiations" or 33% commissions disguised as 8% (of face value - which is a manifestly silly denominator). No more uncertainty that a single bidder paid the policy's true market value. Just a professional, transparent, expeditious means to ensure comprehensive price discovery - generating substantively higher winning bids - from a universe of 20+ institutional buyers of in-force life insurance and a simple, easily understood fee of 7.5% of the value we help unlock.
Please explore further to learn more or contact us to talk.
Wealth Advisors
Is there any circumstance in which your client would not want to at least be made aware of the option to (and implications) extract significant proceeds from a life insurance policy that is no longer of sufficient utility for them to maintain or that may opportunistically be the source of desired liquidity?
Trustees & Trust Co's
Are there any circumstances in which the Trusts you administer are best served not being aware of the potential value that a settlement of a policy might generate, if the circumstances of the Trust (e.g. illiquid trust or liquidity issues of the owner/donor) or its owners change such that maintaining - or surrendering - the policy might not generate the best outcome for the beneficiaries?
Life Insurance Agents
If you have experience with the transaction with brokers, as you read further, ask yourself which solution do you think your clients would choose, and what would the impact on the relationships with them be if you put them into a life settlement that extracts a third of the value with a broker vs. our approach and 7.5%?
What solution would you use for your or a family member's policy?
Regardless of your role...
If you in any way touch your clients' life insurance, or it plays a role in their financial or estate plan, and you're not looking out for their interests on a policy that no longer makes financial sense for them to maintain, who is and what will be the impact on your client if you aren't?
Making life settlements a rational option for top wealth advisors.
We do life settlements better, to your standards.
While we occupy only a small corner of the HNW/UHNW wealth management world, we are committed to one thing - delivering maximum proceeds from your clients' unwanted and surplus life insurance in a professionally executed transaction in which you, their advisor, can have absolute faith and confidence.
We started this business because we were frustrated by what we saw as buyers with a large private equity buyer of in-force life insurance for seven years, offended by life settlement brokers’ business practices, opaque and ineffective price discovery, and egregious commissions and simply believed that we could – and should – do it better.
And, importantly, we wanted to have fun doing it - changing a market is hard, but fun - working with people we like and respect personally and professionally, who share our values, and who we’d want to spend time with, if we weren’t working together.
2016
year founded
>30%
higher net proceeds
7.5%
fee (of value realized)
20+
institutional buyers reached
Smarter Planner Podcast
Hear in this episode of the "Smarter Planner Podcast" Belle Osvath, CFP, interview 1908's founder, Scott Sanders, about his company's innovative approach to helping financial planners work with their clients to sell life insurance policies that they and their advisors determine they no longer want or need.
SMARTER PLANNER PODCAST
Hear in this episode of the "Smarter Planner Podcast" Belle Osvath, CFP, interview 1908's founder, Scott Sanders, about his company's innovative approach to helping financial planners work with their clients to sell life insurance policies that they and their advisors determine they no longer want or need.
$437,400 winning bid
$32,805 1908 fee
Large national wirehouse
91 year old healthy female
$754,000 UL
Change in beneficiary status
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$770,000 winning bid
$57,750 1908 fee
$245 billion AUM RIA
75 year old healthy male
$3,150,000 GUL
Divorce
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$700,000 winning bid
$52,500 1908 fee
$9 billion AUM RIA
61 year old male (manageable cancer)
$2,000,000 converted term (UL)
Health diagnosis, preferred liquidity
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$900,000 winning bid
$67,500 1908 fee
$25 billion AUM RIA
51 year old female (manageable cancer)
$5,000,000 convertible term
Key Man policy (retained upon sale of business)
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$2,948,000 winning bid
$157,500 1908 fee
$9 billion AUM RIA
85 year old healthy female
$5,300,000 GUL
Charitable Trust owned
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$2,600,000 winning bid
$50,000 1908 fee
UHNW Life Insurance Advisor
75 year old male/75 year old female
$29,000,000 GUL
Individual owned - wanted to exit premium loan
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$5,300,000 winning bid
$265,000 1908 fee
UHNW insurance advisor (part of $140B RIA)
85 year old male/79 yeay old female
$12,000,000 GUL
Trust owned
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$90,000 winning bid
$7,500 1908 fee
$140 billion AUM RIA
72 year old healthy male
$1,000,000 UL
Individual owned (was collateral on business loan)
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
$130,000 winning bid
$12,500 1908 fee
$9 billion AUM RIA
73 year old healthy male
$1,500,000 UL
No longer needed (wife preceded him in death)
RECENT CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS
Better outcomes.
1.8x
average premium net proceeds to what broker actually got/could have gotten
Simply, maximizing the value of unwanted and surplus life insurance policy
We regularly generate with our advisor clients hundreds of thousands and often millions of dollars in proceeds from life insurance policies that they would otherwise simply have lapsed or would not have been able to utilize as the basis for a preferred outcome (e.g., re-balancing the assets in a Trust, utilizing the proceeds from a sale to redeploy for a higher projected return).
Whether a $500,000 policy or a $50,000,000 policy - or anywhere in between - we can enable you to deliver comparable results for your older HNW/UHNW clients with life insurance that they no longer need or from which they might prefer the liquidity that the sale of a policy that is otherwise of marginal or declining utility.
Top RIAs
Three of the top five, six of the top ten, and 10+ of the top 50 RIAs in the country, collectively with more than $1T AUM, most of which assiduously avoided life settlements altogether prior to learning of our model.
Life Insurance Agents
Several of the most sophisticated life insurance agents and advisory firms in the country. We are especially appealing to those who hold CFP and ChFC designations, given the requirement of holders to act in clients' best interest.
Trust Co's.
We have been engaged by a number of Trustees and are regularly engaged by several Trust Companies and Directed Trust Companies that work with our RIA clients.
Wirehouse Advisors
We have had a number of one-off engagements with Wirehouse advisors who preferred the benefits of our approach for their clients, not seeking compensation, like this one.
THE BEST, MOST CONSCIENTIOUS FINANCIAL ADVISORS OF VARIOUS DISCIPLINES
Our Clients
We know how hard you work to acquire your clients and how hard you work every day to maintain the trust that they have in you to work in their interest. We further understand that if assessing the potential utility of a life settlement versus maintaining the policy and/or other means to engage potential buyers of the policy, while maximum bids and net proceeds are obviously of the greatest significance, a broader description of the value proposition of the transaction is important to consider.
We deliver that full value proposition - transparently, efficiently, and expeditiously – and work like crazy to earn your trust every day.
"Once it was clear how big a difference your approach makes for our clients, we could never again in good conscience go back to the broker we used before we were introduced to you and the 1908 team."
Client Service Lead
$10 billion in-force life insurance advisor (part of $140B RIA)
"I won’t even imagine the reaction of one of our advisors to learning too late that a life insurance partner that we work with didn't engage 1908 and put a shared client into a brokered life settlement and charged our client those outrageous fees."
Managing Director, Head of Insurance Solutions
$125 billion RIA
"I know our advisors just added a new tool to their toolbox and I’m excited to see our teams collaborate."
Region Head, CFA
$15 billion RIA
"We have seen time and time again direct evidence of the benefits of both higher bids and materially lower fees that accrue to our clients who want to do a life settlement as a result of using 1908’s service."
Senior Insurance Advisor (CFP)
$9 billion RIA
"1908's model has turned this sector upside down amidst all these cowboy brokers."
Managing Director (ChFC, CLU)
$30 billion RIA
"Your approach aligns with where the true advice business for life insurance is going, including bringing real transparency to the otherwise murky industry of life settlements."
Vice President (CFP, CLU)
Large national life insurance broker
"We *love* working with you and your team."
Co-Founding Partner (CLU, ChFC)
$10 billion in-force life insurance advisor (part of $140B RIA)
"You are our only partner in the life settlement space and have built an outstanding reputation with our advisors. We appreciate your partnership and the great work you do for our clients!"
Director of Financial Planning (CFP, CPA, LLM)
$25 billion RIA
recent client engagements
$3,150,000
face value
$770,000
winning bid
$712,500
net proceeds
$375,500
incremental to broker proceeds
$5,900,000
face value
$2,550,000
winning bid
$2,360,000
net proceeds
$675,500
incremental to broker proceeds
40% of HNW/UHNW WHO LIVE PAST >72 WILL LAPSE OR SURRENDER A POLICY
More frequent opportunity than most are aware.
Given that 50% of HNW/UHNW HH’s >72 own $1.2T of UL/convertible term insurance, but 85% is subsequently forfeited (40,000/$75B each year), at least 40% of your clients who live past 72 are going to need to discuss what to do with a policy – whether purchased for protection or an estate planning objective – that you and they assess no longer makes sense to maintain.
So, with your knowledge of your clients' financial planning objectives, you are uniquely positioned to identify those changes that give rise to the 85% and the opportunities to instead monetize a policy, like those scrolling here (including liquidity preference), just a sample of our last 15 engagements, and to discuss the utility of a potential settlement.
Preferred to fund different strategy for Trust after death of husband on 2nd to die policy
Divorce - rather than maintaining policy, settle and split proceeds
Change in beneficiaries obviated need for death benefit
Preferred liquidity of a sale to SV of a policy that owner no longer wanted to maintain
Unpalatable increase in premiums, policy no longer "worth it"
Opportunistic windfall, borne of health diagnosis and unwanted policy (term conversion)
Illiquid trust that owner could not/would not fund more
Adjusting large life insurance portfolio & prefer proceeds of sale to SV
Charitable Trust that donor no longer wished to fund/still healthy & lived much longer than anticipated
Corporate-Owned Key Man on departed CEO; policy obviously no longer necessary, but of value
Buy/Sell policy after sale of business of no value to insured/owner's estate
Proceeds to fund repayment of poorly performing premium finance loan to avoid collateral call
Key Man policy on owner after sale of business with subsequent health diagnosis that created value in policy
With growth of other assets in the estate, owners simply no longer wanted policy for beneficiaries
Term conversion opportunity for windfall
Higher winning bids.
1.3x
average multiple of what broker actually got/could have gotten
Smarter, more effective and efficient price discovery.
Our single-round, blind, best and final auction is not only much faster than the brokers' process, but also uniquely effective at compelling participants to bid to their true private value, not anchored to others' bids, resulting in substantially higher winning bids - often a multiple of what a broker could get through "negotiations" - than brokers' protracted, open, multi-round bidding process.
And the resulting difference is often not just a fraction higher, but a multiple of other bids, putting hundreds of thousands and even millions more in your clients' account.
recent client engagements
Simple, transparent, expeditious, effective, fair fees
We enable the price discovery benefits of real competition among multiple credible buyers without the opacity, inefficiency, and high cost of a broker. Importantly, you are intimately engaged in the process – with end-to-end transparency and full audit trail – and understood by your client to have been the driver of a high-value service win and significant windfall from an asset that would otherwise have been forfeited for little or no benefit.
And we do it in weeks, not months, with a single round, blind, best and final auction, executed in a secure ShareFile bid room, not via e-mail and phone calls.
80%
successful auctions
20+
buyers reached
15/60
days to complete auction/fund
7.5%
fee (of proceeds - CSV)
75%
auctions successful
20+
buyers reached
15/60
days to complete auction/fund
7.5%
fee (of winning bid - CSV)
75%
auctions successful
20+
buyers reached
90/120
days to complete auction/fund
>30%
fee (of winning bid - CSV)
~75%
successful auctions
20+
buyers reached
90/120+
days to complete auction/fund
>30%
fee (of proceeds - CSV)
Contrived complexity, protracted, opaque, ineffective, and egregious fees
If traditional brokers were just expensive, it would be one thing, but, the truth of the matter is that their descriptions of what they do are utterly fanciful and part of an effort to capitalize on an understandable dearth of understanding of how policies are valued and who the buyers are, creating the perception of complexity and of having discovering value where it ostensibly wouldn't have been discovered without their “negotiating” expertise.
It’s all a Kabuki theatre that costs your client a lot of time, energy, and money - both in egregious fees and ineffective price discovery.
1908 vs. brokers
SIMPLE, TRANSPARENT, AND EXPEDITIOUS
80%
successful auctions
20+
buyers reached
15/60
days to complete auction/fund
7.5%
fee (of proceeds - CSV)
CONTRIVED COMPLEXITY, PROTRACTED, INEFFECTIVE, EGREGIOUS FEES
<80%
successful auctions
20+
buyers reached
90/120+
days to complete auction/fund
>30%
fee (of proceeds - CSV)
We enable the price discovery benefits of competition among multiple credible buyers without the opacity, inefficiency, and high cost of a broker. Importantly, you are intimately engaged in the process – with end-to-end transparency and full audit trail – and seen by your client to have been the driver of a high-value service win and significant windfall from an asset that would otherwise have been forfeited for little or no benefit.
And we do it in weeks, not months, with a single round, blind, best and final auction, executed in a secure ShareFile bid room, not via e-mail and phone calls.
If traditional brokers were just expensive, it would be one thing, but, the truth of the matter is that their descriptions of what they do are utterly fanciful and part of an effort to capitalize on an understandable dearth of understanding of how policies are valued and who the buyers are, creating the perception of complexity and of having discovering value where it ostensibly wouldn't have been discovered without their “negotiating” expertise.
It’s all a Kabuki theatre that costs your client a lot of time, energy, and money - both in egregious fees and ineffective price discovery.
Will you be there?
WIthout your engagement, your clients are on their own and face only bad or, at best, sub-optimal, outcomes when contemplating what to do with unwanted and surplus life insurance.
90% will lapse or surrender it without ever having considered an alternative, while the other 10% will receive far less for it than they should, by engaging only a single buyer or engaging a broker that will not conduct effective price discovery and will extract egregious economics.
We're here to ensure that you can save your clients from those less than optimal outcomes and, instead, recieve maximum value of the policy - often hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars.
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