1908 Advisors | Client Results

Simply Better Results

An efficient, expeditious, professional engagement. Confidence in a transparent process in which you are actively involved. Comfort that counterparties are all vetted and reputable. And not only that you have extracted the maximum value from the market for your client’s asset, but the fees are transparent, defensible, and rational.

Importantly,

We are an advisor to you. You remain an advisor to your client, and, if you want to receive compensation, do so as a transparent fee for service, not a commission paid by the buyer or broker.
Higher winning bids + lower fee yield higher net proceeds for your clients…achieved in half the time that brokers take.
As an active participant in a professional, disciplined process with real counterparties, not relying on characterizations and “updates” from a broker, you can confidently support the outcome to your client.

Our Process

Demystifying and simplifying what does not need to be a complex transaction

Simple, Transparent

Your client has no life settlement application or contract with us and we don't waste their time with no-value process steps to create "work product", like securing LE reports that buyers do not use, etc. - and if bids aren't compelling, we don't tie them up with a non-circumvent or limit their ability to pursue other options.

Effective, Fast

We don't "negotiate" bids in a protracted, multi-round, open auction. Unlike the flawed broker approach, which rewards bargain-hunting behavior, our price discovery process compels max value bids in a 5-day, blind, best-and-final auction, lest the Provider risk not win the policy in an attempt to acquire it at a bargain price.

Client Friendly

If you and your client assess that a bid is worth pursuing, then and only then does your client sign a life settlement application and then execute a contract to sell the policy, then paying us (and you, if you and your client choose) after they receive their proceeds from the buyer.

Delivering for you so that you can deliver for your clients

We take the trust that you have placed in us very seriously and we never forget that behind each engagement is a real person. Your client. A family. Often, a problem solved or an opportunity created. Sometimes, just a windfall from an otherwise illiquid asset. Regardless, the windfall from an otherwise unwanted asset into which your client likely paid significant proceeds over the years and from which they didn't expect to be able to generate any liquidity is almost certain to be of real value.

And we know that their successes are your successes. And that's why we approach the transaction and process so differently than the incumbent channel of brokers and single buyers - to deliver a fundamentally better experience and far superior economic outcomes.

Below are just a few sample engagements that we've undertaken with advisors to give you a sense of the results we help you generate for your clients.

8x - 10X

Avg. Multiple of CSV

25%

Avg. % of face value

1.4x

multiple of brokers net

Real, Differentiating Service Wins

There are two questions that you should ask yourself regarding your client's unwanted and surplus insurance - one, might a life settlement make sense to at least explore, and two, what is the most responsible way to do it and how do you ensure maximum proceeds to your client?

We generate substantively better outcomes - higher winning bids and fees 1/4 what brokers charge - and do so in a way that is far less intrusive and more confidence-engendering than any other approach. Below are a just a few sample actual engagements that illustrate those superior psychic and economic results of our process and philosophy.

85 healthy male

UHNW insurance advisory firm (part of $140 billion RIA)

The UHNW couple maintained a charitable Trust with significant assets, including several life insurance policies. The life insurance was becoming increasingly expensive and the family, their advisors, and the Trustee assessed, given the exhausted cash value of each policy, that the best interest of the Trust would be to exit two of the policies on the husband, avoiding future years of premiums, and deploying the proceeds to a return-generating strategy.

We had engaged the firm, a financial planning-centric UHNW life insurance advisory firm with more than $10 billion of in-force life insurance across 1,500 clients, only a few months prior. Although they had used life settlement brokers for years for similar situations, they assessed that our approach would yield significant benefit beyond what their previous broker could deliver. Indeed, we conducted a 5-day auction and received winning bids totaling $5,300,000 and net proceeds of $4,770,000 (with this client firm and advisor, we each receive a fee for service of 5%).

A broker would likely have gotten marginally more than the second highest bid of $4,800,000 and would have been paid a fee of $960,000 (their "lesser of 8% of face value and 33% of the transaction value"), resulting in $930,000 less in net proceeds to the seller.

$12,000,000 GUL

Policy

$5,300,000

Winning Bid

$4,770,000

Net Proceeds to Seller

$930,000

Proceeds Greater than Broker

91 year old male/91 year old female

UHNW insurance advisory firm (part of $140 billion RIA)

The 91 year-old UHNW couple with a large life insurance portfolio wanted to explore the sale of two second-to-die GUL policies with $9.8M in death benefit as part of a broader estate planning exercise.

At the end of a two-week review of the policies and medical records and a one-week auction, we had two bidders within 5% of each other, so, we conducted a one-day run-off, if either wished to refine their bid with the knowledge that there was at least one other bidder within 5% of their bid, without telling either whether their bid was the highest. Each modestly increased their bid, resulting in a winning bid of $4,300,000 (and a second high bid of $4,250,000).

Given the narrow difference in the top two bids, we would expect that a broker would likely have gotten about the same winning bid, but would have taken several weeks, given their multi-round bidding process. Using the most charitable calculation that a brokers use (the less of 8% of face and 33% of the gross winning bid less the surrender value), the compensation, assuming they generated the same winning bid that we did, would have been at least $784,000, resulting in a net to the seller of $3,466,000.

The total fee to the client was $322,500, of which we received 2/3rd and our insurance advisor 1/3rd.

$9,800,000 GUL

Policy

$4,300,000

Winning Bid

$3,977,500

Net Proceeds to Seller

$511,000

Proceeds Greater than Broker

79 year old male/78 year old female

$9 Billion AUM RIA

The original owners and insureds of the policy, a healthy couple in their late 70’s, had a few years earlier sold the policy to a third-party LLC in which their beneficiaries retained an interest.

Despite the insureds’ good health and relative youth, the policy's no lapse guarantee made it very attractive to a universe of investors, as the only risk to an owner was duration and greater expense, not return. While the policy would become increasingly expensive as the insureds aged, the death benefit grew correspondingly, to a maximum of more than $8,000,000.

While we quickly received a number of bids, ranging from $650,000 to the winning bid of $802,500, it was a complex case that took longer to close than our typical transaction because the policy was held in a trust owned by an LLC, controlled by a 3rd party investor, in which the original beneficiaries still retained a minority interest and right to reject a sale to protect their ultimate projected payout.

$5,200,000 GUL

Policy

$802,500

Winning Bid

$742,000

Net Proceeds to Seller

$205,000

Proceeds Greater than Broker

67 year old male, moderately impaired health

$9 Billion AUM RIA

The trustee of a Trust that held a term policy on the moderately impaired 67 year-old insured engaged us regarding the potential for a settlement of the term policy that was two months from expiring. She had intended to let the policy expire, but realized that it would make sense to explore whether a converted policy might yield something in a sale.

The insured, who also funded the Trust, had a complex medical history that resulted in variable views of his life expectancy. Given his age, buyers' actuaries would need to forecast a life expectancy of <20 years for the policy to have any value at auction.

Our blind, best and final auction process, however, ensured that those bidders with a view of a shorter life expectancy would not be able to curate their bids to be only sufficiently higher to win the auction, but rather to the actual value they ascribed to the policy. The policy received a handful of bids, with a max bid of $200,000 - yielding a much better outcome for the Trust than lapsing it would have.