Certainly. Provided it has a clear and bona fide benefit to the consumer and it puts folks in a better financial position, it makes sense to tap an non-earning asset.

I think it is a fantastic idea, but the overall menatlity of ignorant people like Senator McKasskil make something like this almost an impossibility.
I have always felt that Long Term Care Insurance was an abvious fit (Has anyone ever been taken advantage of whiel buying a LTC policy?)for Reverse Mortgage proceeds. I just doubt that the few “champions of the elderly” who have indicated their lack of understanding when it comes to Reverse Mortgages (ever see the satisfaction rates in an article?) would only see this as another opportunity for the horrible,predatory loan officers to make more money at the expense of the preyed upon senior clients.

Although I believe it could be a great fit in the right circumstances I have to agree with REVGUYJIM.

I hate to through out the baby with the bath water but it will bring in alot of the undesireables along with more fraud and more negative press which we certainly do not need.

The insurance product already exists, Mr.Boscia is just talking about merging the two and using the RM for the funding mechanism. I have to give him credit, in the current atmosphere, it takes nerve to suggest cross-selling the RM with Insurance!!! It makes a lot of sense for both the senior and the government to lessen Medicaid cost so we can all afford our new health plans. But, I wouldn't hold my breath until MetLife, Wells Fargo and BoA are on board.. heck, then even NRMLA will become a cheerleader.

While combining insurance products is an exceptionally good idea, combining them with reverse mortgages is not. One would expect current and former insurance agents and their lackeys (along with those who falsely believe that all seniors who are not declared legally incompetent are fully capable of making decisions that are in their financial best interests no matter how integrated or complicated the product may be) to respond positively to the combining of insurance products with reverse mortgages. It was a responsible and wonderful thing to see a true advocate of LTC and other insurance products express his reservations about combining insurance and financial products with reverse mortgages. dduck12, you are a true credit to your profession.

There are two distinct groups of seniors: the elderly and those who are on their way. CSA education caused me to take note of the aging of my father who is now in his nineties. Up until a few years ago, certain patterns were fundamentally true of his aging. One was his strict preference for beef and potatoes for dinner. As he was fond of saying, he ate his last fish when he was 9. But now when we go out to eat, he eats blackened salmon. His reason is that he can taste it; yet he considers himself a strict beef and potatoes man to this day.

Obviously other areas are not what they were when Dad was 60. The trouble is determining which he truly understands are diminished or changed and how he is coping with diminished and changed capacities. Unlike most his age, he lives by himself, gets up daily, showers, shaves, and gets dressed to take care of his business activities. He must meet education requirements for his business licenses and is, therefore, keenly aware that he lacks sufficient agility and capacity to understand the new and ever expanding field he is licensed in. Fortunately he can limit his practice to those areas where he is competent and notifies his customers of areas in which he is not competent.

The trouble is I have met those who are more mentally incapacitated in some areas at 62 than my father at his age. Yet very few seniors are basket cases in their 60’s but the quality of their decision making skills lack the vigor, rigor, agility, and other factors needed to evaluate highly integrated insurance products. Now add that to a reverse mortgage and all rhyme and reason as to the reasonable expectation that seniors can readily evaluate such products in light of their own situations, flies right out the door. Too many times I have heard seniors declare when confused about reverse mortgages, “Honey, I am sure you would not sell me anything that was really bad for me. Now would you, huh?”

While counseling may help seniors evaluate insurance that is funded through reverse mortgages, most of us believe counseling is stretched to its capacity already. Insurance companies are always exploring new products, ideas, combinations, and other approaches to sell more product; this is natural. When it comes to seniors, such strategies should be greatly restricted.

Mr. Banner,

What business acumen does this require? Did I hear Mr. Gecko in the background correctly analyzing it as “greed?”

Mr. Frankel,

As would be expected, they view their own positions not that of the senior. Who would expect more? So what you are saying is, their risk of loss at that time in investing in mortgages secured by the homes of their clients exceeded their expectation in profits? And you attribute the difference in attitudes toward this combined transaction today as the ability to securitize those mortgages and sell the risk to others? What a novel idea, if we had not had the demise of AIG and the huge market losses in MBS securities!!

Did I see or read of any concern for the client? Thank goodness the world is not composed of overzealous insurance advocates.