The European Life Settlement Association (ELSA) has attacked a series of articles in leading newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, suggesting life settlements could be the next sub-prime investment disaster.
The newspapers, including the New York Times and the London Evening Standard, have claimed credit agencies have been approached to rate pools or securitizations of life settlements prompting the link with American sub-prime mortgages. Life settlements are US life insurance backed investments, and relate to unwanted policies which have been sold by the policyseller to a financial institution in exchange for a cash sum. These policies relate to individuals over the age of 65 with an anticipated life expectancy of less than 15 years. ELSA argues there is a lack of correlation between lif...
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