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While recently taking a continuing education course required for long-term care insurance licensing renewal, we were pleasantly surprised to find that life settlements were cited as a possible source of funds for long-term care expenses.
Although we've taken these courses for many years to maintain our licenses, this was the first time that life settlements were mentioned by one of them. Not only was it covered in the course content, but two of the 25 test questions were on life settlements!
It is gratifying to see that life settlements are finally being acknowledged as a meaningful way to fund long-term care expenses. We've written about and suggested this for years. For a person requiring long-term care, especially with a chronic or terminal illness, a life settlement is certainly an option to be considered.
Normally, with a significant illness, the last thing a policy owner wants to do is give up a life insurance policy that is apt to pay a death benefit in the not too distant future. Any other source of funds, including borrowing, is likely to be a better choice than a life settlement because the ultimate life insurance death benefit has the potential to be much larger than the proceeds of a life settlement.
Robin S. Weinberger, CLU, ChFC, CLTC, is the director of national accounts for Life Insurance Settlements Inc. She has been a general agent and director of national accounts for Connecticut Mutual and vice president of marketing for Sun Life of Canada. She can be reached at 
Peter N. Katz, JD, CLU, ChFC, RICP, is a life settlement broker and co-director of national accounts with Life Insurance Settlements Inc. He is also a consultant specializing in life insurance advanced sales illustrations, and he has served as an advanced markets attorney and in product development. He can be reached at 
