North Carolina Puts Checks On Viaticals

NU Online News Service, Oct. 26, 1:45 p.m. – North Carolina has passed a law to protect residents who want to sell their life insurance to raise cash.

The law is aimed at preventing abuses of viatical settlements, whereby terminally or chronically ill people sell their paid-up insurance policies to provide living or medical expenses. State Insurance Commissioner Jim Long says the new law expand his department’s regulatory authority over such settlements and is aimed at protecting policyholders from unfair sales practices.

“Individuals in need of selling their death benefits are usually in very difficult and often desperate positions,” comments Long. “It is important that there be safeguards to protect their privacy and assure they understand what they are doing when they enter into a viatical settlement. It is also important to make certain the people who engineer these sales are legitimate.”