A whole lot of this book is 
status but 
at the whole 4th chapter "Markets in Life and Death" and some of the things I didn't know about:
1. janitors insurance/dead peasants insurance/company owned life insurance
The company you work for like can take out a life insurance policy on you with themselves as the beneficiaries. Earlier this was limited to CEOs and such but lax laws eventually made it possible for them to apply it down to the rank and file.
2. viaticals
This started out in the 1980s when people were dying of AIDS like crazy. Somebody would come and buy the life insurance policy of the sick in cash and get a nice payout when that person died in about a year or two. The AIDS drugs eventually messed this up and they eventually moved on to better markets like terminal cancers. There's an anecdote of one dude in the book who got better talking about he received letters and phone calls constantly wondering whether or not he was dead.
3. Life settlements
As a spin off the viaticals, someone came up with a plan to buy the existing life insurance of relatively healthy senior citizens and also wait on the returns. Eventually people got seniors to buy life insurance and flip it on the spot to the investors, known as spin-life insurance or stranger-originated life insurance, but that eventually became mostly illegal.
status but at the whole 4th chapter "Markets in Life and Death" and some of the things I didn't know about:1. janitors insurance/dead peasants insurance/company owned life insurance
The company you work for like can take out a life insurance policy on you with themselves as the beneficiaries. Earlier this was limited to CEOs and such but lax laws eventually made it possible for them to apply it down to the rank and file.
2. viaticals
This started out in the 1980s when people were dying of AIDS like crazy. Somebody would come and buy the life insurance policy of the sick in cash and get a nice payout when that person died in about a year or two. The AIDS drugs eventually messed this up and they eventually moved on to better markets like terminal cancers. There's an anecdote of one dude in the book who got better talking about he received letters and phone calls constantly wondering whether or not he was dead.
3. Life settlements
As a spin off the viaticals, someone came up with a plan to buy the existing life insurance of relatively healthy senior citizens and also wait on the returns. Eventually people got seniors to buy life insurance and flip it on the spot to the investors, known as spin-life insurance or stranger-originated life insurance, but that eventually became mostly illegal.
