Investors Held Others' Life Insurance

Here's a ruthless investment strategy. Insurance companies are losing fights with investors who bought life insurance policies on elderly people. Agents would talk elderly people into taking out multimillion-dollar policies on their own lives, then sell that policy to investors who would pay the premiums and collect when the policy holder died. Insurance companies are claiming fraud, but in many cases jurors are deciding the companies failed to properly investigate the policies. In one case, it wasn't until they'd issued the policy that a company investigated a man's claim to have made $1.2 billion in sunken treasure.