Download Life Risk News Volume 3, Issue 6, June 2024

Industry publication The Deal publishes an annual report that looks at the number of transactions in the life settlement industry’s secondary market. This year, the headline numbers show a market in growth mode, as both the number of deals and the total value of them have increased for the third consecutive year. Greg Winterton spoke to Rainer Gruenig, CEO at Plenum Investments, Rob Haynie, Managing Director at Life Insurance Settlements, Inc. and Anton Pozine, Portfolio Manager at Ress Capital to get an asset manager’s perspective on the state of the secondary market in Number of Deals, Aggregate Face Value Both Up As Life Settlement Market Continues Growth Trajectory. 

The UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority will introduce stress testing for insurers’ exposure to funded reinsurance transactions for the first time in 2025. Aaron Woolner dissected a recent speech given by Lisa Leaman, Head of Insurance Supervision at the PRA at a recent industry conference to extract the most salient points in Regulatory Oversight to Provide UK Bulk Purchase Annuity Market with Busy Few Years. 

In mid-May, insurance company PHL Variable and its subsidiaries entered into rehabilitation. Greg Winterton spoke to Brian Casey, Partner and Co-Leader of the Regulatory and Transactional Insurance Practice Group at Locke Lord and Patrick McAdams, Investment Director at SL Investment Management to learn more about the bigger picture in PHL Variable Rehabilitation Emphasises Need for Prudent Counterparty Risk Management. 

Wealth has long had a high correlation with longevity – those more prosperous tend to live longer. But recent research shows that may no longer be the case. Aaron Woolner spoke to Shantel Aris, Head of Longevity Experience Studies at Club Vita, to learn more in Is Education the Primary Driver of Life Expectancy? 

The risk that a life settlement provider failed to hew to the letter of the law is one which has incentivized funds to undertake careful diligence on the underlying purchase transaction to confirm that the providers they use to originate policies are compliant. James W. Maxson, Partner at EM3 Law addresses the statutory framework pursuant to which an individual with ‘seller’s remorse can pursue claims for violations of state life settlement statutes with the result that a transaction can be unwound or damages sought from the provider and/or ultimate fund/owner in Do Life Settlement Statutes Create Private Rights of Action?, a guest article. 

One of the most common ills of mankind is chronic pain. However, in some cases, there is not an obvious connection between the pain and the chronic muscle spasm that was responsible for the chronic pain. In any case, treatment of chronic pain requires knowledge of its source. Roger H. Coletti, Medical Director at Fasano Underwriting, digs into a new treatment protocol, CMECD, and its potential benefits in Innovating Beyond Cardiology: Discoveries in Acquired Chronic Muscle Spasm and Resulting Chronic Pain, our second guest article this month. 

Our Q&A this month features John Kiff, now an independent consultant and formerly of the International Monetary Fund. Kiff has been on top of the longevity risk transfer market for almost 20 years and offers his thoughts on the space this month. 

The rising interest rate environment of the past two and a half years has had the impact of reining in deal activity in some life ILS trades, like balance sheet lending or value-in-force (VIF) deals, because rising rates make these transactions more expensive for life insurers, thus dampening demand. That is not the case in the asset-intensive corner of the life ILS market, however. Greg Winterton spoke to Gokul Sudarsana, Chief Investment Officer – Life Insurance at Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (d/b/a HSCM Bermuda) to learn more about activity and trends in this part of the life ILS market in Solid Outlook for Growing Asset-Intensive Life ILS Transaction Market.