Hey guys, check out this site. It's a company that buys life insurance policies from terminally ill people, then cashes them in and profits when they die. http://www.lphi.net/index.htm Absolutely mindblowing. From the "resources" page: In other words, they take the cash and stash it away in offshore tax havens where it can be laundered in any number of untraceable ways. I think this is what people mean when they say "evil corporations." Damn.
I personally don't think that this is bad at all. Some people use said money they recieve for a highly experimental medical procedure. Still others take the money and go finish life off with a bang... or make sure the family is well off. Who exactally loses here?
Great business idea! Business-wise its really good, morally it may suck, but hey if you don't do it, some else will.
And its legal. A well-known way for underclass people in the US who need cash quickly for medical reasons or to bail out a family member go to a car-title loan office. Basically, they get a loan, with a high or low interest rate (depending on your credit), but they use their car as collateral. If the person who took out the loan is delinquent in paying off the loan money, they take away the car. Of course, its very easy to scam those types of companies...
Just seems to me that profiting from another person's death is a little unethical. Sure nobody is forcing you to sell your life insurance policy, it just seems to me that companies like this are preying on desperate people. Like you need that money to get a kidney transplant, the company comes to the "rescue." People usually get life insurance to take care of dependants, not as a source of funds for future medical treatment. Like you ever seen that movie No Escape, it's about this prison island like Escape from New York, (but not as good) and when the main character shows up this trader/dealer guy says to him "I like your shoes. I'll help you out and I get your shoes when you die." Kind of like that company above, a low risk factor becasue investments are not based on market forces but on time. Almost like you're selling your soul to them. I don't know, that site just pissed me off. What the hell is happening to our society when this kind of pillaging goes unchallenged....
this is actually really popular with terminal AIDS patients here in SF.. they know they're going to die within a year or two, and as they're mostly gay men they don't have any dependents, so they sell off their multi-million-dollar policies for a few $100k that they can use to go out with a bang, so to speak.. it may seem shady, but it's fulfilling a need for that particular community, at least.
If the person dying doesn't mind, who cares? Shouldn't they have the right to get a little dough on the side?
