Wall Street's Latest Darling: Life Insurance Settlements (E-Commerce Times)
Many of us have never heard of life insurance settlements. Actually, they have been around for several decades and have become quite popular among investors like Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Berkshire Hathaway and hedge funds. In fact, the annual cash volume of life insurance settlements in the U.S. today exceeds $10 billion and is constantly growing.

MIB Life Index Reports North American Life Insurance Activity Down 2.4% in May (PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance)
North American application activity for individually underwritten life insurance was off -2.4% in May, year-over-year, according to the MIB Life Index. Year-to-date U.S. and Canadian application activity was off -2.1% compared to the same period last year.