I read a front page article from the Sunday edition of the New York Times a few years ago on a new money-making scheme Wall Street insiders were beginning to invest in called – Life Settlements. It was a simple idea that had been around for awhile – purchase the life insurance policies of the old and/or infirm for less than the payout value, continue to pay the premiums, and then collect the payout when the person died – presumably a lot more money than the purchase price and the total dollar value of the premiums the investors had to pay.
The writer of the article hinted that Life Settlements might have the potential of becoming Wall Street’s next housing boom because of the trillions of dollars worth of insurance policies held by Americans. There was an undertone in the article that another Wall Street disaster might eventually occur.
The idea I took from the article was this: if investors wanted to maximize their investment, the insured had to die as soon as possible after the investor bought the insured’s policy. The longer the investor had to pay the premiums on an insurance policy, the less profit the investor would make.
That idea that sat in the back of my mind for a few days. Then I read the article again and highlighted various parts and made notes about possible characters and events that might take place, and areas that I would have to research to build a background of information on Life Settlements.
When I came back to the article and my notes a few weeks later with fresh eyes I realized that Life Investments held a lot of potential, in my humble opinion, for a crime novel. I didn’t have my novel’s title – Insure to Murder – yet, but I was sure that a private detective like Robert Champion would want to take on a case surrounding the untimely deaths of former life insurance policy holders.
So where do you find your ideas?