Rest in Pieces: Life Insurance Blunders Around the World
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Forget everything you think you know about life insurance
What at first glance appears to be a predictable, solid, and even somewhat boring business turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a stage for human error, bold speculation, and some truly incredible stories. This book takes you on a fascinating journey through over four hundred years of insurance history-and reveals a side of the industry that is rarely told. From harmless miscalculations to far-reaching management errors that dragged entire companies into ruin: the cases collected here are as instructive as they are entertaining. They show how closely success and failure are intertwined in the world of life insurance-and how small decisions can have major consequences.
The book is more than a collection of curious anecdotes-it is a fascinating look behind the scenes of an industry that influences our lives more than we realize. Surprising, insightful, and at times frightening: a read that is guaranteed to change the way you view life insurance.
But the focus isn't solely on financial missteps. Life insurance has repeatedly served as a motive for crime-from staged deaths to sophisticated fraud schemes. The chapter "Where There is a Will There is a Way" shows various examples how life insurance can serve as a motive for murder. Obviously, the life insurance industry could still do better removing all incentives for potential murderers. This applies in particular to insurance covers for children. "Empty Graves But Full Wallets" is a follow-up of the previous chapter, illustrating a much less brutal approach for life insurance fraud, the faked death. The standard cases normally involve a deadly event (and a corresponding body) in a developing country and the necessary documents which can easily be forged there. For a faked death in a developed country, however, the body is normally missing. Pension or annuity fraud works the other way round: money is flowing as long as a person is supposed to live. In these cases, the challenge is to hide the corresponding bodies.
Special attention is also given to investments: from supposedly ingenious financial structures that turn out to be deceptive "perpetual motion machines" to high-risk strategies and dubious investments in other people's policies. In "Have the Cake and Eat It Too" we have a closer look at inventive structures for money multiplication in the context of life insurance. The two main examples are major fraudulent schemes in the German insurance market. "Too Many Eggs in One Basket" shows some examples of the devatating impact of one-sided investments. One case is dealing with "Global Bankers", a conglomerate with life insurers feeding their affiliated companies, mudding the water for the regulators. Further cases include the insolvency of "Mannheimer Leben" in Germany, "Executive Life" in California and "Confederation Life" in Canada.
"One Man's Death is Another Man's Treasure" presents the case of the so-called "life settlements" or traded life insurance policies which are actually bets on the dead - and a source for systematic fraud. The next chapter "Does the End Justify the Means?" shows a further step of the traded life policy market, with speculators initiating life insurance (so-called Spin-Life). This market raising many moral concerns has actually come to an end in recent years due to several court decisions in the US.
The last chapter "The Road to Hell is Paved With Brave Assumptions" is analysing various product failures which were based on specific assumptions regarding the behaviour of the policyholders. You would probably expect people to act differently, depending whether they get something in case of surrender or nothing. You would also expect some people to make economically rational decisions whenever they have the possibility to execute the option. However, there are many examples of failures in this area.
What at first glance appears to be a predictable, solid, and even somewhat boring business turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a stage for human error, bold speculation, and some truly incredible stories. This book takes you on a fascinating journey through over four hundred years of insurance history-and reveals a side of the industry that is rarely told. From harmless miscalculations to far-reaching management errors that dragged entire companies into ruin: the cases collected here are as instructive as they are entertaining. They show how closely success and failure are intertwined in the world of life insurance-and how small decisions can have major consequences.
The book is more than a collection of curious anecdotes-it is a fascinating look behind the scenes of an industry that influences our lives more than we realize. Surprising, insightful, and at times frightening: a read that is guaranteed to change the way you view life insurance.
But the focus isn't solely on financial missteps. Life insurance has repeatedly served as a motive for crime-from staged deaths to sophisticated fraud schemes. The chapter "Where There is a Will There is a Way" shows various examples how life insurance can serve as a motive for murder. Obviously, the life insurance industry could still do better removing all incentives for potential murderers. This applies in particular to insurance covers for children. "Empty Graves But Full Wallets" is a follow-up of the previous chapter, illustrating a much less brutal approach for life insurance fraud, the faked death. The standard cases normally involve a deadly event (and a corresponding body) in a developing country and the necessary documents which can easily be forged there. For a faked death in a developed country, however, the body is normally missing. Pension or annuity fraud works the other way round: money is flowing as long as a person is supposed to live. In these cases, the challenge is to hide the corresponding bodies.
Special attention is also given to investments: from supposedly ingenious financial structures that turn out to be deceptive "perpetual motion machines" to high-risk strategies and dubious investments in other people's policies. In "Have the Cake and Eat It Too" we have a closer look at inventive structures for money multiplication in the context of life insurance. The two main examples are major fraudulent schemes in the German insurance market. "Too Many Eggs in One Basket" shows some examples of the devatating impact of one-sided investments. One case is dealing with "Global Bankers", a conglomerate with life insurers feeding their affiliated companies, mudding the water for the regulators. Further cases include the insolvency of "Mannheimer Leben" in Germany, "Executive Life" in California and "Confederation Life" in Canada.
"One Man's Death is Another Man's Treasure" presents the case of the so-called "life settlements" or traded life insurance policies which are actually bets on the dead - and a source for systematic fraud. The next chapter "Does the End Justify the Means?" shows a further step of the traded life policy market, with speculators initiating life insurance (so-called Spin-Life). This market raising many moral concerns has actually come to an end in recent years due to several court decisions in the US.
The last chapter "The Road to Hell is Paved With Brave Assumptions" is analysing various product failures which were based on specific assumptions regarding the behaviour of the policyholders. You would probably expect people to act differently, depending whether they get something in case of surrender or nothing. You would also expect some people to make economically rational decisions whenever they have the possibility to execute the option. However, there are many examples of failures in this area.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:B0H4S21RDM
ISBN13:9798180831026
Release Date:June 2026
Publisher:Independently published
Length:221 Pages
Weight:0.67 lbs.
Dimensions:9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"
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