Life Settlements: Analyzing the Market of Death Bonds

In 2017, Ovid, an insurance auction platform, announced the launch of the Ovid Life Insurance Exchange—a platform that directly connects policyholders with institutional investors for life settlement transactions. At the time of the announcement, Peter Colis, the CEO of Ovid, commented, “We’re the consumer’s biggest advocate in the market. There is $20 trillion of outstanding US life insurance, approximately 90% of which will never pay a claim. Ovid creates a market mechanism to unlock that equity value.” If the name Peter Colis rings a bell, it’s because he, alongside Lingke Wang, the other co-founder of Ovid, are also co-founders of Ethos, the digital life insurance distributor backed by celebrity funds from Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith, and Jay-Z.

Currently, the Ovid site presents blogs on Girl Scout Cookies and classic rock bands. That aside, the site features a calculator that asks for your name, phone, email, death benefit, policy type, length of ownership, whether the policy was provided by a current or former employer, date of birth, sex, and health information, only to later prompt you to call a 1-800 number and speak to an Ovid agent, subsequently leading to a robocall spamming you. Our final note regarding Ovid is that the LinkedIn profile of Peter Colis states that he has “built and led Ovid through a successful acquisition.” At Coverager, we cover modern insurance. The question now is: Is the life insurance secondary market modern and good?