Money and Finance

Those interested in investing may consider art only investment funds. These funds deal with canvas art and are motivated by the high selling prices for some pieces of art. For example, Monet paintings can sell for millions of dollars. So can Klimt paintings. And, Picasso’s “Boy with a Pipe” painting recently sold for over one hundred million dollars.  With numbers this high the art investment funds look like a pretty safe bet and a lot less stale than other funds.  These funds are only a couple years old although similar funds were started practically a hundred years ago in France. They were pretty successful so commerce finally caught up with the idea again and implemented it. It really is quite interesting and it allows those middle class individuals with an interest in art to actually invest in it, where before art was reserved more for the wealthy who had money to spare. Anyone who is interested in investing in a fund but would like something that is a little more interesting than a warehouse store or restaurant should consider art investment funds. They are sound investments and more fun!

You may have already heard of this newer aspect of the life insurance industry called a life insurance settlement that has recently come about. A life insurance settlement is the sale of the legal ownership rights to another life insurance policy. These rights go from the insured to a third party for an amount that is more than the surrender value but less than the total death benefit. This is good for the seller if they are cash strapped, and nice for the buyer because it makes a good investment. Essentially, the seller of the rights gets quick funds, and the buyer of the insurance policy will get an even larger amount on the death of the insured.To get a better understanding for life settlements, you have to take a deeper look into the life insurance settlement history. The life settlement industry is actually cousin to the viatical settlement industry which came about in the 1980’s during the AIDS epidemic. In order to pay for medical treatment, many AIDS patients used all of their cash reserves, and then some. The only thing many patients had left worth anything was the life insurance policy that they held. During this time of need, a small group of investors understood that it made practical investment sense to purchase these insurance policies. As an example, if someone had a $600,000 policy they wanted to sell for $300,000 and their life expectancy was a year, this makes for a smart investment for anyone with to money to buy it. The investor which purchases the rights would realize a pre tax gain of $300,000 (100%), subtracting any fees necessary to keep the insurance policy up. The industry quickly exploded to a multi-billion dollar industry practically over night. Fortunately, technological advancements increased the life expectancy of AIDS patients from one year to 20 years. Because of this, instead of %100+ yearly returns on the investment, investors were typically seeing a %5 yearly return. The industry quickly vanished as quick as it came.