Complaint Review: LPI

We were looking for a safe investment with reasonable expectation of positive returns. LPI got our attention through a radio show featuring Jeff Bolton in the DFW, Tx area. All of their advice over the radio seemed conservative and well researched. The hosting station, had a good reputation so I made the call and a licensed representative agreed to come to our home to give us details on viaticals and Life Partners Inc.

He was about as smooth as any sales person I had ever met and my wife also almost immediately trusted him.  He spent the next few hours explaining to us how viaticals worked and why LPI had an edge in the industry. He spoke of a Doctor specifically engaged by LPI to gather medical data and a huge staff of researchers that had put together statistics for them. He also told us he was personally, heavily invested in viaticals through LPI.

Again, the rep told us LPI had "the edge".  They had purchased only the policies with the very best possibility of maturing in only 3 or 4 years or less. Initially, we felt the whole program was a bit morbid, depending on the deaths of it's clients asap. He made us feel very comfortable with that particular part of the program, explaining to us that these wonderful, wealthy Grandparents were being afforded the chance to spend their money as they saw fit, before dying.

He showed us that, according to LPI, there was a high possibiity of huge returns on our money in just a period of 4 to 6 years. Of course, he said there would be a few that would defeat the stats by living longer, but by buying interest in as many policies as possibilities, we would be hedging our bet.  For each policy portion we purchased, we had to pay esgrow for policy payments over a certain initial period. That time has long since expired.  After that, we would have to pay premiums on policies until they matured.  According to the rep, any expenses incurred for future payments would be easily covered by policies that had matured in the first 2 years or so, leaving a handome profit for us.  He made it clear to us that LPI's fees were set and would never change and as we understood it from reading the contracts, that was true

Everything sounded great.  Walt explained that never had a life insurance policy more than two years old been denied payoff at death, evern it was discovered after 2 years that the insured had obtained the policy with false medical information. "Never".  As our initial evening progressed, the representative continued to ease any concerns we had.

By the time HE left that evening, My wife and I had purhcased interest in several policies invloving a lot of cash.  That cash was withdrawn from our retirement accounts in a matter of just a few days. As it turns out, the initial payment to LPI was the only thing that has happened as promised.  We are now receiving letters from LPI, demanding higher anual fees, threatening to forfiet our investment if we don't pay.  In other words, as this investment becomes less and less attractive, LPI, with apologies of course, wants a bigger piece of the pie in order to cover their losses while we get left holding the bag

Our investment with LPI began in 2008, over 6 years ago.  As of today, only one of the many policies we purchased has matured and the profits from that maturatation fall way short of even covering payments now due on policies in the amount of thousands of dollars.

Here is what puzzles me.  If these viaticals were such wonerful investmemts, why then, would not someone, perhaps even LPI, not be willing to return at least our initial investment and take over the policies.  We have after all now suffered the loss projected income on our money.  It seems to me that if they were such a great investment, buying them would be a great deal for somebody.  If even half of what they told us was true initially, then these viaticals should be ripe for the picking of some savvy investor.  Instead, LPI will not touch them while only demanding more and more fees.  I don't get it.  Perhaps we did not deal with honest brokers who had done their homework. Or, maybe they did do their homework and saw a chance to milk retired folks out of their money. 

I understand that there is risk in investment. The way it was presented to us, the only "possible" risk was making less that 6 % per year.  Either they don't know what they are doing or they were not honest with us and their in house "Doctor" provided them with some pretty bad information.