This just adds more weight to the fact that these are scams as the writer doesn't understand the regulatory nature of endowments and insurance company procedures and falls back on the old chestnut of private placements for the sophisticated investor that is so common in the word of private placement prime bank fraud
With life assurance you have the assured that's the person who owns the plan and the life assured this is the person who is covered, to have an insurable interest between these two parties they must either be personal partners i.e spouse or key business partners with an insurable interest i.e a business venture trusts have to be used in the latter for legal reasons so that the payout falls to the business rather then the business partner, in addition to this there are underwriting conditions depending on age ,health and occupation as these add to subtract from the risk.
No life assurance company will issue a policy with out the necessary underwriting and have departments set up to carry out these procedures , when you add an investment element into the mix which gives a guarantee on maturity these have to be invested in funds that are audited each year and they need to have a capital adequacy of at least 80% to cover the guarantee, so this this reason have to invest in low risk investments hence the lower returns and the recent TEPs market as people want to dump these poor performing plans.
With endowments all the costs and charges are paid up front from the initial premiums so it makes them a great investment when bought second hand as profits are starting to show positive returns and on average they produce 10% or so per annum on the investment.
To really find out about endowments just go on the web and try and buy one....the only ones available are tax free savings plans with very small premiums used for children and issued by mutuals and friendly societies...why is this? because with out the tax allowances they are very poor investments and even with the tax allowances they are still not much better and are used by the very cautious investor looking to out perform the bank savings account by a few percentage points.
So in summary there is no need to use endowments for this transaction, if these investors are sophisticated they would have other financial instruments at their disposal that would be more fitting to the task as endowments are old fashioned, not financially viable for insurance companies to issued in large numbers due to capital adequacy rules and the cost of policing them and this is just using the TEPs bandwagon to make up an investment instrument that doesn't exist
Correction
The self-styled expert who wrote the "answer" below is making the elementary mistake of comparing apples with oranges.
There are in fact two markets that exist with regard to endowment policy trading, the first type is the publicly Traded Endowment Policy (TEP) market which is regulated by securities regulators, which is the only market you will find any information about if you google the phrase "Traded Endowment Policies".
In this regulated market, the hub of which is in the UK, you must hold a TEP for 7/8 years before the TEP has accrued sufficient value to make it possible for it to be sold on, for a profit, crucially however, as well as this regulated public market in TEPs, there is also private financial market known as the a "private placement" traded endowment policy market, this market is closed to the general public because it is not regulated by the SEC or equivalent regulators, but it is regulated by the insurance regulators.
Within this private financial market only Sophisticated/Accredited Investors are permitted to invest in the these type of TEPs, and when I say Sophisticated/ Accredited Investors I am referring to the Trust partner or Venture Capital firm, not us the members.
So how is it possible that we as members are able to participate in a private placement TEP transaction, even thought they are not open to the general public?, simple, we join a private-members club and pay a membership fee (admin fee), this private-members club structure makes it possible if a "Reverse Pension Plan" to provide it's members with access to these type of transactions as beneficiaries, not as Investors.
The biggest difference between publicly offered and regulated TEPs, and private placement TEPs, is that the private placement TEPs, have an immediate value based on its maturity value which is available to the Sophisticate/Accredited Investor as soon as the policy is issued, in other words you don't have to hold a private placement TEP for 7/8 years before it has accrued sufficient value to make it possible to sell it, this reality is demonstrated by the fact that the Bank will offer a loan of 60% of the endowment policy's face value (maturity value) to the Sophisticated/Accredited Investor (Trust partner Venture Capital firm) as soon as it is issued, and since Banks only give loans against good collateral, it should be equally clear that these type of private placement endowment policies constitutes excellent collateral, as otherwise no such loan would be forthcoming.
Remember, these private placement TEPs should not to be confused with publicly offered and regulated TEPs, so knowing your apples from your oranges is key, and is what separates the financially savvy individual, from those less so.
Answer
This is all total fantasy and not what TEPs are I work in the TEPs market in London and would just confirm a few facts as we have had many enquiries regarding these Reverse Pension Schemes that simply do not exist and must be bogus scams
The market is primarily to my knowledge based in the UK as thousands of Endowment policies were sold in the 80s & 90s for Mortgage repayments, due to the nature of the plans most pay very low bonus rates as these funds have to be guaranteed once declared so chose to invest in lower risk investments which obviously reap lower returns
Many maturing policies are not covering loan amounts so many householders chose to cash their policies in early and switch to an repayment loan basis, now because the policy surrender value gives away terminal bonus which can only be paid at maturity this threw up an investment market for investors wishing to buy these plans and carry on the premiums to maturity and thus obtain the bonus and the value of a TEP is about 20% higher then the surrender value , and for the investor it represents a return of about 8-10% per annum on their total investment.
Now reverse pensions say they are issuing insurance plans and trading these on the TEPs market at the maturity value….this just cannot happen and the value of a new plan is lower then the premiums paid for the first few years so this would be a crazy thing to do as you would get less than you pay, plus no bank would loan against a projected maturity value which is why the TEPs market will only quote once a value has been achieved.
Its worth remembering that when these are issued for a mortgage it's the property that's being used as collateral not the policy which is just a repayment vehicle designed to pay at a future date from bonuses earned through investment funds, these cant be paid before they are earned other wise you could do this for your mortgage and save all the interest repayments and just pay the policy premiums over 25 years
Its our opinion that foreign fraudsters have looked at the booming TEPs market in the UK and based this on the concept which looks good for those with out any experience and are easily baffled by financial jargon which although is quite good its also totally inaccurate.
Inserted text: The following \"alternative answer\" is text that appears on several of the \"Reverse Pension Plan\" websites marketing material and warrants review in that context:
\"I thought I would add this alternative answer to try to show you how it works.
Reverse pension plans are innovative and highly profitable projects initiated and run by venture capitalists - in pre-arranged cooperation with their insurance company and their mortgage company.
To gather a target number of eligible members, the venture capitalists set up a network-marketing operation (for example, Global Pension Plan or Pension World Wide), offering very generous referral commissions to those who will help get the word out.
When the "Reverse Pension Plan" has reached its' goal number of contracts/members, the venture capitalists will purchase a pension insurance policy on each member which will, of course, mature when the member reaches 67 years of age.
A quick Google search will reveal many entities who are willing to purchase these policies for immediate lump sum payout. This should assure those unfamiliar with endowment policies of their legitimate value. However, Reverse Pension Plan members agree to transfer ownership of their policies to the venture capitalists who purchased them on the members' behalf for a one-time sum.
Then, as each member reaches the age of 67 years, the venture capitalists will collect the full value (about $250,000) of each policy - an assured, substantial, long-term income for them! Also, the cost of the policies, the compensation, and the referral commissions are all tax-deductible business expenses, too.
Additionally, with possession of these policies as collateral, the venture capitalists are eligible for massive loans. This leaves them with plenty to cover cost of the network-marketing operation - referral commissions and administration . By using the loan to finance the program, they now own a pension policy with a significant value upon maturity.
So, now you see that Reverse pension plans benefit everyone involved ! "
RPP are nothing but elaborate scams run by very dubious characters
The real fact is that no reverse pension plan has ever paid out. The 1st one launched 5 years ago and every one since has had a funny way of vanishing.
[WoMM - This statement "no reverse pension plan has ever paid out", needs to include a date. I don't know when it was written but I am typing this as of Jun 25 2009, and it still seems accurate from my research. We await the counterexample. ]
Firstly the sums are fantastical and not based in reality. They have been disproved by a range of insurance specialists. These guys are operating in the billions without licenses or even a postal address....
Consider that no RPP plan has ever given out direct contact details or a registered address. They use dubious money services to collect funds and route payments through a variety of institutions to keep their identity hidden.
The biggest RPP of them all is The Global Pension Plan. 8 months after promised payments, the plan has not even collected personal details from the over 150,000 registered clients.
There are constant warnings listed on various national securities websites including :
Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Germany and others.
A number of sales agents identified with these schemes are convicted felons and others are under investigation.
If you are reading this topic by way of research before purchasing, RPP's are a proven scam and no amount of marketing or number fudges should blind you to the fact
The scammer who promotes GPPs invited you to Google TEPS to see the number of firms in this market place….
Now do a little more research on these sites and look at the qualifying rules and you will see that its impossible to trade one until the surrender value has equalled the initial price or premiums paid, that's about 6-7 years …go on an have a look?
These plans are no longer available as they represent poor value for money as the guaranteed element or the sum assured has to be invested in safe funds….however when they were a Single premium of $41k which is what GPP are saying they are paying would provide a guaranteed sum of $33250…….so if you traded that from the outset you would actually lose money.
Use the link below to visit one of the UKs biggest TEP traders and see the qualifing rules for yourself.....why not call them and ask them about RPPs....!
http://www.endowments.uk.com/?source=ggst&cat=Tep%7C825410678&tpage=index&tkeyword=_tep_&s_kwcid=tep|825410678
