What if you could cash in on your life insurance now, while you’re still very, very much alive? Perhaps you can as there is now money to be made by companies buying life insurance from people – people who are indeed walking and talking among us – who are willing to pay you a tidy sum of cash for your policy. They’ll even cover the cost of your premiums and they do it in exchange for the right to collect on your life insurance policy proceeds once you pass from this mortal coil.
Yep. These businesses will hand you money now with the intent to cash in once you kick the bucket.
As a business model, GWG Life is on the bleeding edge of the game, and one key to the operation is their adherence to the idea that their potential clients will send in samples of their saliva which can then be analyzed to reveal critical information. The juices are used to come up with a sort of death clock for each customer which is based on epigenetics, the study of “potentially heritable changes in gene expression.”
Epigenetics is at the forefront of new and ongoing research aimed at uncovering the role of genetics in the enormous variety of human disorders and fatal diseases. The data is collected with an eye toward determining – and there’s no delicate way to put this – how long a potential client will live. The theory is that through analysis of certain genes encoded in a human’s DNA, it’s researchers can predict with relative certainty when someone will expire.
The entire methodology hinges on understanding the results of an algorithm designed to quantify the possible longevity of an individual using an epigenetic clock. The function of the “clock” is set up entirely from the DNA present in a saliva sample. While the proponents say the science is, at best preliminary and not particularly reliable according to scientists, it’s the possible applications of the idea that have scientists, well, salivating.
The scientists behind epigenetics say that what began as “broad research focused on combining genetics and developmental biology” during the mid-twentieth century has now been honed to a methodology aimed at understanding how environmental stress might cause “genetic assimilation” of certain “phenotypic characteristics” and thus, change organisms in various, predictable ways.
The term epigenetics itself was coined by Conrad H. Waddington in 1942. Waddington took the name from the Greek word “epigenesis” which described the influence of genetic processes on development. At its core is the idea is that environmental stresses can cause genetic assimilation of certain basic characteristics within the actual genetic makeup of organisms.
As for the nuts and bolts of the process, scientists use what’s known as DNA methylation which they believe might be important in long-term memory function. They also us a set of methods which include chromatin remodeling, histone modifications and non-coding RNA mechanisms to study a range of disorders from cancers to mental retardation disorders to immune disorders to neuropsychiatric disorders and even pediatric maladies.
Where companies, GWG among them, once pored over data from questionnaires, phone interviews, existing medical records and feedback from policyholders about their use of prescription drugs and other medications, GWG is now focusing on what they hope is more objective data.
According to GWG, the model “allows policyholders to receive a lump sum payment today for the current value of your life insurance.”
“If you need cash now and no longer want your life insurance, selling your policy can be a great solution. Based on the actuarial value of your policy, this transaction provides you with a lump sum greater than the policy’s surrender value but less than the total face value. GWG Life typically pays five to eight times more than the cash surrender value offered by insurance companies.”
– GWG website
GWG Life says they are the first “financial services company applying epigenetic technology to transform the life insurance industry” by collecting and analyzing epigenetic samples from life insurance policy owners. A press release from the company says they are “the first insurtech company to apply DNA Methylation technology to life insurance underwriting.”
Jon R. Sabes, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GWG, says policy owners are now providing saliva samples which will be used to analyze the overall health and life expectancy of policy owners.
According to Sabes, a September 2016 issue of Aging magazine noted that certain levels of “methylated biomarkers” were proven to be predictive of an individual’s risk of all-cause mortality, contributing to a more accurate estimate of the life expectancy of policyholders, and he says that represents “a key factor” for his firm’s life insurance secondary market business.
“We just think that we may have stumbled on something that has some pretty broad and important applications for a much larger industry,” Sabes told STAT.
Sabes says that thus far GWG has collected saliva samples on a sponge from more that 40 of the people from whom his company has purchased policies, and that “only a few” refused to provide the requested DNA.
