Premium financing

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Premium financing is the lending of funds to a person or company to cover the cost of an insurance premium. Premium finance loans are often provided by a third party finance entity known as a premium financing company; however insurance companies and insurance brokerages occasionally provide premium financing services through premium finance platforms. Premium financing is mainly devoted to financing life insurance which differs from property and casualty insurance.

Contents

To finance a premium, the individual or company requesting insurance must sign a premium finance agreement with the premium finance company. The loan arrangement may last from one year to the life of the policy. The premium finance company then pays the insurance premium and bills the individual or company, usually in monthly installments, for the cost of the loan.

Typically, clients that engage in this transaction are age 29 to 75; with net worth of $5MM or greater. Premium financing is popular when interest rates are low.

Types of life insurance premium financing

Benefits

There are a number of benefits to financing insurance premiums. These include:

Risks and mitigation

Factors to consider:

Interest rate volatility risk

Since the interest due on the money lent to pay premiums is tied to an index, usually the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) or Prime if interest rates rise, the total interest charge will rise as well. If the policy owner can't afford to pay interest payments then they stand to lose their insurance and be left with significant debt if the surrender value of the policy is less than the balance owed. If this becomes the case the client would have not been able to pay the premiums on a non financed policy in any event so as with anything else make sure your can afford the policy. Responsible lenders take this risk into account when they do their financial underwriting. Typical loan rates are pegged to 1 year LIBOR with a competitive spread of ~ 180 bit/s. Most borrowing rates can be anticipated from 2.5% to 6%; depending on the fluctuation of 1 year LIBOR + the fixed spread.

Renewal risk

The lender may have the right to call the loan at the end of the term. Virtually all premium financing loans have terms of a duration less than the life of the policy.

Carrier credit rating risk

Financing terms are sensitive to the credit rating of the carrier holding the financed policy. Carrier downgrades may result in the lender choosing to not pay additional premiums, requiring the borrower to post additional collateral or call the loan and collapse all the collateral to cover any moneys due to the Lender. Most premium finance platforms require carriers to be S&P rated A or greater.

Crediting rate risk

Carriers choose the crediting rate of in-force blocks of business at-will. Current crediting rates are not guaranteed. As such, any illustrated arbitrage in interest rates between the policy crediting rate and the loan interest rate may not exist in the future.

Credit spread risk

Life insurance carriers and premium finance lenders use the same fundamental financial instruments. Carriers fund insurance contracts with corporate debt. Lenders provide liquidity at personal debt rates. Corporate debt yields are less than personal debt rates. As such, premium financing may carry a negative spread for the client financing the premiums. Indexed Universal Life insurance, through Indexing, may provide the policy the interest crediting needed to support the arbitrage.

Collateral risk

Most premium financing arrangements that are designed to provide liquidity to the client at death are 100% collateralized. In most cases, the client must either post a Letter of Credit (LOC), securities accounts, other non-financed life insurance policies, annuities or any other hard assets approved by Lender to satisfy collateral. Collateral requirements may vary with economic conditions and could force the client to liquidate positions in order to post collateral. Furthermore, a decrease in the value of collateralized assets (such as real estate or securities) may require the insured or their estate to post additional collateral.

Settlement risk

(Note - Settlement Risk pertains to Life Settlement Transaction, Not all Premium Finance Transactions)

Some premium financing programs are sold under the assumption that the policy will have a substantial market value at the end of the term. The client can then exit the financing arrangement and realize a gain on the investment. The secondary life insurance market is highly volatile. Settlement offers will vary with the interest rate environment and the degree to which capital will "wait" for a return. Any premium finance program or broker that induces you to enter into a premium finance transaction with the sole purpose of selling the policy after the policy is no longer contestable by the issuing carrier (generally two years) may be illegal and violate state "insurable interest laws".

Insurable interest

Insurable interest is a concept that dates back to the English legal system. Wagering on the life of an insured was common, and many times a person with no interest, economic or otherwise, would take out a life insurance contract on a sea captain running dangerous routes, a boxer facing a deadly opponent, etc.

This caused the English courts to declare that an individual taking out a life insurance contract on the life of an insured must have an "Insurable Interest" in their life. This means, in its simplest terms, you must benefit more by having the individual insured alive, than dead. Direct blood relatives certainly have an insurable interest in a family member. A business partner can have an insurable interest in another business partner.

This is a very misunderstood concept. Insurable interest either exists when a policy is issued, or it does not. If an insured is premium financing a policy, and his direct blood relatives are named as the beneficiaries when the policy is issued, then insurable interest is never an issue. If an insured changes ownership of the policy as soon as it is issued, but the beneficiaries are related by blood when the policy was issued, there is no insurable interest issues.

Life insurance is personal property. It is like a car, a home or any other asset that you own. You have the right to pledge it, sell it or change ownership of it as long as it was issued with the death benefit going to a blood relative or related party, that benefits by having you alive, rather than dead.

Recent court cases have been hearing arguments from insurance carriers regarding the sale, or transfer of ownership of policies in courts around the nation (circa 2010) by insureds that have sold their policies to investors. The courts have overwhelmingly found in favor of the insureds, finding that insurable interest existed at the time the policy was issued, and there for the right to sell or transfer the policy after issuance was the choice of the insured enjoyed by any asset holder. Many life insurance carriers have tried, and generally unsuccessfully, to challenge these sales based on insurable interest or by trying to prove that the insured "intended" to sell the policy. The courts have found that "intent" is irrelevant, when insurable interest exists at policy issuance.

Current environment

Premium financing arrangements were under intense scrutiny. In-force financed policies are being called for collateral in large numbers. Clients who are "underwater," where the loan balance exceeds the policy cash value, are being forced to post additional collateral at low risk-weighted rates and/or surrender the policies and pay the outstanding loan balance out of pocket. Additionally, several carriers who were active in the financing marketplace have been downgraded, causing large-scale exchanges or surrenders from in-force policies.

Currently, premium financing is becoming a more regulated industry. All financing sources must be carrier approved, and most lenders have substantial (billions) in assets. Some are specialized premium finance lenders and most are large institutions. Advisers generally use a preferred premium finance platform to assist in properly structuring and maintaining (servicing on an annual basis) life insurance premium finance cases.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insurance</span> Equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another in exchange for payment

Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent or uncertain loss.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Factoring (finance)</span> Financial transaction and a type of debtor finance

Factoring is a financial transaction and a type of debtor finance in which a business sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount. A business will sometimes factor its receivable assets to meet its present and immediate cash needs. Forfaiting is a factoring arrangement used in international trade finance by exporters who wish to sell their receivables to a forfaiter. Factoring is commonly referred to as accounts receivable factoring, invoice factoring, and sometimes accounts receivable financing. Accounts receivable financing is a term more accurately used to describe a form of asset based lending against accounts receivable. The Commercial Finance Association is the leading trade association of the asset-based lending and factoring industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life insurance</span> Type of contract

Life insurance is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death of an insured person. Depending on the contract, other events such as terminal illness or critical illness can also trigger payment. The policyholder typically pays a premium, either regularly or as one lump sum. The benefits may include other expenses, such as funeral expenses.

Title insurance is a form of indemnity insurance predominantly found in the United States and Canada which insures against financial loss from defects in title to real property and from the invalidity or unenforceability of mortgage loans. Unlike some land registration systems in countries outside the United States, US states' recorders of deeds generally do not guarantee indefeasible title to those recorded titles. Title insurance will defend against a lawsuit attacking the title or reimburse the insured for the actual monetary loss incurred up to the dollar amount of insurance provided by the policy.

Term life insurance or term assurance is life insurance that provides coverage at a fixed rate of payments for a limited period of time, the relevant term. After that period expires, coverage at the previous rate of premiums is no longer guaranteed and the client must either forgo coverage or potentially obtain further coverage with different payments or conditions. If the life insured dies during the term, the death benefit will be paid to the beneficiary. Term insurance is typically the least expensive way to purchase a substantial death benefit on a coverage amount per premium dollar basis over a specific period of time.

Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liability arising from such guarantee. An underwriting arrangement may be created in a number of situations including insurance, issues of security in a public offering, and bank lending, among others. The person or institution that agrees to sell a minimum number of securities of the company for commission is called the underwriter.

Universal life insurance is a type of cash value life insurance, sold primarily in the United States. Under the terms of the policy, the excess of premium payments above the current cost of insurance is credited to the cash value of the policy, which is credited each month with interest. The policy is debited each month by a cost of insurance (COI) charge as well as any other policy charges and fees drawn from the cash value, even if no premium payment is made that month. Interest credited to the account is determined by the insurer but has a contractual minimum rate. When an earnings rate is pegged to a financial index such as a stock, bond or other interest rate index, the policy is an "Indexed universal life" contract. Such policies offer the advantage of guaranteed level premiums throughout the insured's lifetime at a substantially lower premium cost than an equivalent whole life policy at first. The cost of insurance always increases, as is found on the cost index table. That not only allows for easy comparison of costs between carriers but also works well in irrevocable life insurance trusts (ILITs) since cash is of no consequence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collateralized debt obligation</span> Financial product

A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Like other private label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the cash flow the CDO collects from the pool of bonds or other assets it owns. Distinctively, CDO credit risk is typically assessed based on a probability of default (PD) derived from ratings on those bonds or assets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asset-backed security</span> Security with value derived from a commodity or asset

An asset-backed security (ABS) is a security whose income payments, and hence value, are derived from and collateralized by a specified pool of underlying assets.

Whole life insurance, or whole of life assurance, sometimes called "straight life" or "ordinary life", is a life insurance policy which is guaranteed to remain in force for the insured's entire lifetime, provided required premiums are paid, or to the maturity date. As a life insurance policy it represents a contract between the insured and insurer that as long as the contract terms are met, the insurer will pay the death benefit of the policy to the policy's beneficiaries when the insured dies. Because whole life policies are guaranteed to remain in force as long as the required premiums are paid, the premiums are typically much higher than those of term life insurance where the premium is fixed only for a limited term. Whole life premiums are fixed, based on the age of issue, and usually do not increase with age. The insured party normally pays premiums until death, except for limited pay policies which may be paid up in 10 years, 20 years, or at age 65. Whole life insurance belongs to the cash value category of life insurance, which also includes universal life, variable life, and endowment policies.

Group insurance is an insurance that covers a group of people, for example the members of a society or professional association, or the employees of a particular employer for the purpose of taking insurance. Group coverage can help reduce the problem of adverse selection by creating a pool of people eligible to purchase insurance who belong to the group for reasons other than the wish to buy insurance. Grouping individuals together allows insurance companies to give lower rates to companies, "Providing large volume of business to insurance companies gives us greater bargaining power for clients, resulting in cheaper group rates."

Trade credit insurance, business credit insurance, export credit insurance, or credit insurance is an insurance policy and a risk management product offered by private insurance companies and governmental export credit agencies to business entities wishing to protect their accounts receivable from loss due to credit risks such as protracted default, insolvency or bankruptcy. This insurance product is a type of property and casualty insurance, and should not be confused with such products as credit life or credit disability insurance, which individuals obtain to protect against the risk of loss of income needed to pay debts. Trade credit insurance can include a component of political risk insurance which is offered by the same insurers to insure the risk of non-payment by foreign buyers due to currency issues, political unrest, expropriation etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mortgage loan</span> Loan secured using real estate

A mortgage loan or simply mortgage, in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any purpose while putting a lien on the property being mortgaged. The loan is "secured" on the borrower's property through a process known as mortgage origination. This means that a legal mechanism is put into place which allows the lender to take possession and sell the secured property to pay off the loan in the event the borrower defaults on the loan or otherwise fails to abide by its terms. The word mortgage is derived from a Law French term used in Britain in the Middle Ages meaning "death pledge" and refers to the pledge ending (dying) when either the obligation is fulfilled or the property is taken through foreclosure. A mortgage can also be described as "a borrower giving consideration in the form of a collateral for a benefit (loan)".

Bond insurance, also known as "financial guaranty insurance", is a type of insurance whereby an insurance company guarantees scheduled payments of interest and principal on a bond or other security in the event of a payment default by the issuer of the bond or security. It is a form of "credit enhancement" that generally results in the rating of the insured security being the higher of (i) the claims-paying rating of the insurer or (ii) the rating the bond would have without insurance.

Collateral Protection Insurance, or CPI, insures property held as collateral for loans made by lending institutions. CPI, also known as force-placed insurance and lender placed insurance, may be classified as single-interest insurance if it protects the interest of the lender, a single party, or as dual-interest insurance coverage if it protects the interest of both the lender and the borrower.

A synthetic CDO is a variation of a CDO that generally uses credit default swaps and other derivatives to obtain its investment goals. As such, it is a complex derivative financial security sometimes described as a bet on the performance of other mortgage products, rather than a real mortgage security. The value and payment stream of a synthetic CDO is derived not from cash assets, like mortgages or credit card payments – as in the case of a regular or "cash" CDO—but from premiums paying for credit default swap "insurance" on the possibility of default of some defined set of "reference" securities—based on cash assets. The insurance-buying "counterparties" may own the "reference" securities and be managing the risk of their default, or may be speculators who've calculated that the securities will default.

Stranger-originated life insurance ("STOLI") generally means any act, practice, or arrangement, at or prior to policy issuance, to initiate or facilitate the issuance of a life insurance policy for the intended benefit of a person who, at the time of policy origination, does not have an insurable interest in the life of the insured under the laws of the applicable state. This includes the purchase of life insurance with resources or guarantees from or through a person that, at the time of policy initiation, could not lawfully initiate the policy; an arrangement or other agreement to transfer ownership of the policy or the policy benefits to another person; or a trust or similar arrangement that is used directly or indirectly for the purpose of purchasing one or more policies for the intended benefit of another person in a manner that violates the insurable interest laws of the state. The main characteristic of a STOLI transaction is that the insurance is purchased solely as an investment vehicle, rather than for the benefit of the policy owner's beneficiaries. STOLI arrangements are typically promoted to consumers between the age of 65 and 85.

Insurability can mean either whether a particular type of loss (risk) can be insured in theory, or whether a particular client is insurable for by a particular company because of particular circumstance and the quality assigned by an insurance provider pertaining to the risk that a given client would have.

The credit channel mechanism of monetary policy describes the theory that a central bank's policy changes affect the amount of credit that banks issue to firms and consumers for purchases, which in turn affects the real economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Financial law</span> Legal rules relating to financial instruments and financial assets

Financial law is the law and regulation of the commercial banking, capital markets, insurance, derivatives and investment management sectors. Understanding financial law is crucial to appreciating the creation and formation of banking and financial regulation, as well as the legal framework for finance generally. Financial law forms a substantial portion of commercial law, and notably a substantial proportion of the global economy, and legal billables are dependent on sound and clear legal policy pertaining to financial transactions. Therefore financial law as the law for financial industries involves public and private law matters. Understanding the legal implications of transactions and structures such as an indemnity, or overdraft is crucial to appreciating their effect in financial transactions. This is the core of financial law. Thus, financial law draws a narrower distinction than commercial or corporate law by focusing primarily on financial transactions, the financial market, and its participants; for example, the sale of goods may be part of commercial law but is not financial law. Financial law may be understood as being formed of three overarching methods, or pillars of law formation and categorised into five transaction silos which form the various financial positions prevalent in finance.

References

    Folger, J., & Estevez, E. (2022, June 23). Life Insurance Premium Financing: Worth the Risk? Www.Investopedia.Com. Retrieved August 16, 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/insurance/life-insurance-premium-financing-worth-risk/

    Premium Financing for High-net Worth Clients. (2020, August). Www.Equitable.Com. Retrieved August 16, 2022, from https://equitable.com/selling-life-insurance/sales-ideas/wealth-transfer/premium-financing-high-net-worth-clients