The life settlement secondary market saw reduced activity in 2024 for the first time in four years. Greg Winterton caught up with Perry Koons, Director of Capital Markets at life settlement provider Maple Life Financial, to get his thoughts on the state of the market as we enter the second half of the year.
GW: Perry, let’s start with a look back on 2024. The downturn in activity has been quite notable, but that is an aggregate view. What was the situation in the broker channel specifically last year?
PK: Thanks Greg. I would generally agree that the aggregate downturn the market faced last year was mirrored in the policy flow from the broker channel as well, but with a few caveats. We saw a very specific drop off in policy submissions a few months into 2024, which levelled off quickly once market pricing levels and yield requirements were reestablished. As interest rate increases resulted in less available capital in 2024, the broker channel was able to respond and avoid taking marginal value or high expectation cases to market – cases which likely would have sold in 2023 but were pricing much less attractively in 2024.
GW: When we spoke a couple of years ago, you mentioned that there was a trend towards concentration and maybe consolidation. Has that trend continued, and if so, will it continue still, and what might the impact be of this on the market overall?
PK: Yes, I think the market is still trending in that direction overall, but at a slower pace than expected. We have not seen the consolidation aspect come into play yet, more of a gentle stagnation last year when it was a down year for the market. Publicly available market data indicated the exact same number of life settlement providers reporting transactions in 2023 and 2024, just lower volume for the vast majority of them. Additionally, we did not see any notable change in the number of brokers we completed transactions with on a year over year basis. Based on this, I believe we may still be a year or two away from any significant changes, but I still believe we are heading in that direction.
GW: What are some of the notable trends you are seeing in terms of the features of the paper in the secondary market? Anything interesting in terms of face value, age of the insured, or carriers for example?
PK: Recent statistics show exactly what I would have anecdotally expected – a market that looks similar to prior years in terms of aggregate numbers, but policies with high success rates are skewing towards slightly smaller face and younger insureds than in past years. The average policy submission we have seen in 2025 averages around $1.8m, and the average insured age is 75, which sounds pretty typical. However, the average closed face amount is closer to $1.5m and we are seeing a greater number of submissions and offers on insureds below age 60 than ever before. I would also note that the average policy submitted is over 16 years from issuance, and from carriers rated A- or better with very few exceptions. So, we are dealing with very seasoned policies, more so than I’ve seen at any other point in my 20 years in the market.
GW: Many parties on both the broker and provider side mention the value of speeding up the process of completing a secondary market transaction. Shorter processes including reduced document packages and usage of electronic documents have been discussed as methods to achieve this goal. Have you noticed any improvements in this area?
PK: Yes, absolutely. A big part of our refocus at Maple in 2024 was along those exact lines. We refiled the vast majority of our state filed contract documents to allow for shorter document packages and fewer notary requirements, which benefits the end consumers as well as the brokers who serve them. We’ve also collaborated with our fund clients to be much more nimble with e-copies of documents and solving challenges with document requests from difficult insurance carriers – those delays are sometimes inevitable and understandable on 20+ year old policies but often requiring a creative solution that we can provide from our history of purchasing and diligencing thousands of policies (rather than simply playing the waiting game). I think the industry as a whole mirrors the commitment to closing more expeditiously than past years to give first time advisors and policy sellers a good experience.
GW: Lastly, Perry, what is the outlook for the remainder of the year in terms of secondary market activity in the broker channel?
PK: I am seeing a positive trend in market activity using a number of indicators. Case submission volume and total face amount submitted is up in the first six months of 2025 as compared to the six months prior. And in regard to the previous question where we discussed case trends, we are seeing the wider “buy box” driving more unique case studies and giving the broker channel additional sales strategies to pursue. In the past few months, we’ve purchased insureds in their 40s, insureds with life expectancies over 200 months, policies with face amounts below $100k, and policies over $10m – many of which received multiple offers from Maple as well as competing providers. I mention this as I still believe a healthy market is sustained by sellers having access to quality representation from the broker channel, as well as institutional capital sources having access to quality representation from the provider channel. We are optimistic this trend will continue and that policy flow will continue to increase back to levels from two-to-three years ago.
Perry Koons is Director of Capital Markets at Maple Life Financial