Abacus Life Settlements has spent over two decades buying life insurance policies directly from consumers, positioning itself as one of the largest direct providers in a market most seniors have never heard of.
The company, now part of publicly traded Abacus Global Management (NYSE: ABX), operates out of Orlando, Florida, and says it typically pays policyholders six to eight times more than what an insurance carrier would offer for a surrendered policy.
This review covers how the company works, what the current life settlement market actually looks like in dollar terms, and where Abacus fits compared to the rest of the industry.
Key Points
- Abacus buys life insurance policies directly from owners and says clients receive 6-8x more than a standard surrender value, a figure that lines up with 2025 industry-wide data showing settlements averaging nearly nine times surrender offers.
- The company is a BBB A+ accredited, HIPAA-certified direct buyer with no broker fees, and it’s the only publicly traded company operating in the life settlement space.
What Abacus Life Settlements Actually Does
A life settlement is the sale of a life insurance policy to a third party for a lump-sum cash payment that’s larger than the policy’s cash surrender value but smaller than its full death benefit.
Abacus acts as the buyer in that transaction. Instead of routing your policy through a broker who shops it to multiple buyers and takes a cut, Abacus purchases directly. The company was founded in New York’s financial district in 2004 and has since relocated its headquarters to Orlando, where it now employs more than 150 people.
The pitch is straightforward: your life insurance policy is your property, and if you let it lapse or surrender it back to the carrier, you’re likely leaving money on the table. Abacus claims clients typically walk away with 6 to 8 times what they’d get from a surrender. That’s not a made-up number pulled from marketing copy alone.
Industry-wide data from the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA) for 2025 shows that settlement sellers received an average of $212,066 per policy, compared to an average surrender offer of just $24,360.
That’s close to nine times more, and the gap actually widened from 2024, when settlements averaged about seven times surrender value.
How the Process Works
Abacus breaks its process into six steps, and the company is fairly transparent about laying them out on its site.
| Step | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Qualify | You provide basic policy and health information through a phone call or online calculator |
| Expectations/Application | Abacus reviews eligibility and outlines what to expect |
| The Offer | You receive a formal cash offer based on age, policy type, and face value |
| Contracts | Paperwork is signed to transfer ownership |
| Verification | The transaction is confirmed and reviewed for compliance |
| Funding | You receive your lump-sum payment |
Abacus advertises 24 to 48 hour turnaround for an initial quote, which is fast by industry standards. Most competitors take longer because they’re shopping your policy to outside investors rather than buying it themselves.
Here’s where things get a little more technical. Three factors drive the value of any settlement offer: the insured’s age and health status, the type of policy (term, whole, universal, or variable life), and the face value of the death benefit.
Term life policies generally qualify too, which surprises a lot of people who assume only permanent policies have secondary market value. Life expectancy underwriting plays the biggest role in pricing.
A shorter projected life expectancy generally means a higher offer, because the buyer expects to collect the death benefit sooner and pay fewer years of premiums to keep the policy active.
The Numbers Behind the Life Settlement Market
This is a market most people never think about, but the dollar figures are substantial. LISA’s 2025 member data collection survey found that its members completed 2,955 settlements that year, up 9.5% from 2024.
Coventry, a competing provider and industry leader in transaction volume, separately reported purchasing more than 1,400 policies representing roughly $1.6 billion in face value in 2025 alone.
A few more data points worth knowing before you decide whether this is worth exploring:
- The average insurer cash surrender value fell 27% year-over-year, dropping from $33,493 in 2024 to $24,360 in 2025.
- Settlement payouts, by contrast, rose to an average of $212,066 in 2025.
- LISA estimates the gap between what policyholders received in settlements versus what they would have gotten from surrendering totaled $554.6 million in 2025 alone.
- Roughly $200 billion in life insurance lapses or gets surrendered back to carriers every year in the U.S., according to figures Abacus cites on its own site.
- A 2010 survey by the Insurance Studies Institute found that 90% of seniors who let a policy lapse said they would have considered selling it had they known life settlements existed.
That last stat is old, but it’s still the number most companies in this space, including Abacus, point to when explaining why the market remains underused. Awareness is the real bottleneck here, not demand or pricing.
Company Credentials
Abacus lists a handful of credentials on its site that are worth verifying independently rather than taking at face value.
The company holds a BBB A+ rating as an accredited business under its legal name, Abacus Settlements, LLC. It says it maintains HIPAA compliance for handling medical and financial records, which matters given how much sensitive health information is exchanged during underwriting.
It’s also licensed in most states, though its site notes it does not currently accept business from Alaska, Louisiana, Texas, or Rhode Island residents.
One thing that separates Abacus from nearly every other name in this industry: it’s publicly traded. Abacus Global Management trades on the NYSE under the ticker ABX, and the company states it’s the only publicly traded company operating specifically in the life settlement space.
Public companies face disclosure requirements that private brokers and settlement providers don’t, which adds a layer of accountability that’s hard to find elsewhere in this market. Whether that translates into a better deal for any individual seller is a separate question, but it does mean more financial transparency at the corporate level.
Types of Settlements Abacus Offers
Abacus doesn’t just handle one kind of transaction. It offers three structures, and understanding the difference matters before you call anyone.
A standard life settlement generally applies to sellers over 70 or those with health conditions that shorten life expectancy. It’s a full transfer of ownership for a one-time lump sum.
A viatical settlement is designed for people facing a terminal or chronic illness, typically with a life expectancy under two years, and the payout is usually tax-free.
A retained death benefit arrangement lets the policyholder keep a portion of the death benefit for their beneficiaries while selling the rest, with the buyer taking over premium payments going forward.
That third option isn’t something every provider offers. It’s a middle ground for people who want cash now without fully giving up on leaving something behind for their family.
Who Should Actually Consider This
Selling a life insurance policy isn’t the right move for everyone, and Abacus doesn’t pretend otherwise on its site.
People typically look into a settlement for one of a few reasons: premiums have become unaffordable, the policy is no longer needed because life circumstances changed, or the cash is needed to cover medical bills or supplement retirement income.
If a policy is headed toward lapse anyway, a settlement at least returns something instead of nothing.
Where this gets complicated is on the tax and estate planning side. A settlement can affect eligibility for need-based government benefits like Medicaid, and the proceeds may be taxable depending on how much you paid in premiums versus what you receive.
Abacus recommends talking to a financial advisor before signing anything, and that’s genuinely good advice regardless of which company you work with. This isn’t a decision to make off a single phone call.
Comparing Abacus to the Broader Market
Abacus operates as a direct buyer, which is different from a broker model. Brokers shop your policy to multiple institutional buyers and typically take a commission, which can run 20% to 30% of the transaction in some cases depending on the broker.
A direct buyer skips that step. In theory, that means the offer you get is closer to what a buyer will actually pay, since there’s no middleman markup.
Coventry remains the largest player by transaction volume and face value purchased, having held the top spot in secondary market purchases for 13 straight years according to its own league table reporting.
Abacus competes on a different axis: speed, direct-buyer transparency, and its position as the only publicly traded name in the space. Neither company publishes head-to-head offer comparisons, so the best way to know which one pays more for a specific policy is to get quotes from both.
Conclusion
Abacus Life Settlements operates as a legitimate, well-established direct buyer in a market where industry-wide data backs up its core claim that settlements pay significantly more than surrendering a policy.
Anyone considering this route should still get more than one quote and loop in a financial advisor before signing, since taxes and benefit eligibility can shift the real value of any offer.