Can You Sell an Athene Final Expense / Burial Policy? (2026)

The face amount decides this before anything else does

Pull out the policy and find the face amount. It is on the first page, usually labeled “Amount of Insurance,” “Face Amount,” or “Death Benefit.” If that number is $25,000 or less, you are outside the life settlement market and there is no version of the story where a competitive auction produces offers. Anyone who tells you otherwise while asking for an upfront fee is telling you something false.

The threshold is not a rule written into any statute. It is a floor that emerges from cost structure. To bid on a policy, a buyer commissions one or two independent life expectancy reports, has counsel review the chain of ownership and the assignment documents, funds an escrow, and then commits to tracking the insured and paying premiums for as long as the insured lives — potentially twenty years or more. Those costs are largely fixed. Spread across a $10,000 death benefit they consume the entire economics of the deal.

There is a narrow exception. In a viatical settlement, where the insured is terminally ill with a short documented life expectancy, the projected holding period collapses from decades to months, and some specialized buyers will look at smaller face amounts than the standard market accepts. Even in that setting, a $10,000 burial policy is usually still too small to attract a bid, but it is the one situation where the answer is not automatically no. Our page on whether a policy is too small to sell covers where the real line sits.

If you own several small policies, add up the face amounts before you conclude anything. Three $15,000 policies on the same insured are not the same as one $45,000 policy for market purposes — each is a separate contract with separate paperwork — but a review of all of them together sometimes finds a larger policy in the pile that the family had forgotten about.

Which Athene entity issued it, and who services it today

Athene is, in 2026, principally an annuity and retirement services business rather than a retail life insurance company. Athene Annuity and Life Company is domiciled in Iowa and headquartered in West Des Moines, which makes the Iowa Insurance Division its primary regulator. Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company is a separate Delaware-domiciled entity, and Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company of New York is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Which one issued your contract is printed on the policy’s face page, and it determines which department handles a complaint.

The corporate history behind those entities explains why a small life policy might carry the Athene name. Athene acquired Liberty Life Insurance Company from Royal Bank of Canada in 2011 and Presidential Life Corporation in 2012, renaming both. In October 2013 Athene acquired Aviva USA — and in the same transaction the Aviva USA life insurance business was sold on to Global Atlantic Financial Group, which placed that block into Accordia Life and Annuity Company. Athene Holding Ltd. was Bermuda-based and completed a merger with Apollo Global Management effective at the start of 2022.

The practical consequence is this: a life policy that traces through Aviva USA may be serviced today by Accordia, not by Athene, even though the Athene name appears somewhere in the file. Before you spend time on hold, look at the return address on your most recent premium notice and the name of the company you are actually paying. That is the servicer. Our general explainer on what happens when a carrier merged and who owns the policy covers why your original contract terms survive all of this intact. They do. A change in ownership of the block does not change your face amount, your riders, or your premium.

Graded and modified benefit periods: check your first three years

Final expense policies come in two shapes and the difference is enormous. A level benefit policy pays the full face amount from day one. A graded or modified benefit policy pays something much smaller if the insured dies within the first two or three years from natural causes — typically a return of the premiums paid plus interest, often in the range of ten percent, with the full face amount payable only after the graded period ends. Accidental death is usually covered in full from the start.

Graded products exist because they are sold to people who cannot pass even simplified-issue health questions. If you were asked no health questions at all, or only two or three, there is a good chance you have a graded or guaranteed-issue contract. The words to look for on the policy are “graded death benefit,” “modified death benefit,” or a schedule showing benefit percentages by policy year.

Why it matters right now: if the policy is more than three years old, the graded period has almost certainly ended and the full face amount is payable. That is a meaningful change in what the policy is worth to your family, and it is a reason not to drop it. If the policy is fourteen months old and the insured’s health has declined sharply, the graded period is a reason to keep paying premiums rather than let the contract lapse and lose the waiting time already served.

Related and separate: the contestability period, generally two years from issue, during which the carrier can rescind for material misstatements on the application. That clock also matters for anyone evaluating a policy, and it runs independently of the graded schedule. Our page on waiting two years after issue explains how both periods interact.

Nonforfeiture options: how to stop paying without losing everything

If the real problem is that the premium has become unaffordable, the tool you want is the nonforfeiture provision. Every state has adopted a version of the Standard Nonforfeiture Law for life insurance, and permanent policies with cash value must offer alternatives to simply surrendering. Whole life final expense contracts are permanent policies, so these options generally apply.

• Reduced paid-up insurance. The accumulated cash value is applied as a single premium to buy a smaller amount of fully paid-up coverage. You stop paying premiums forever and keep a permanent death benefit — just a smaller one. On a $15,000 policy this might leave $6,000 or $7,000 of coverage in force for life, with no further payments. For a burial policy whose whole purpose is to cover a funeral, that is frequently the best available outcome.
• Extended term insurance. The cash value instead buys term coverage at the full original face amount for a fixed number of years. You keep the whole $15,000, but only until the term runs out. This is the better choice when the insured’s life expectancy is short.
• Cash surrender. You take the cash value and the coverage ends. On a small final expense policy the surrender value is usually a fraction of the premiums paid, and it is almost always the weakest of the three.

Ask the servicing carrier for a nonforfeiture illustration showing exactly what reduced paid-up and extended term would produce on your specific contract as of today. It is a free document and they are required to provide it. Compare the two side by side using our nonforfeiture options compared guide before you decide.

Option for a small Athene-branded burial policy	What you keep	What you give up
Keep paying premiums	Full face amount at death	The ongoing premium
Reduced paid-up insurance	Permanent coverage, smaller face, no more premiums	Part of the death benefit
Extended term insurance	Full face amount for a set number of years	Coverage after that period ends
Cash surrender	A one-time cash payment	All coverage, permanently
Accelerated death benefit claim	Cash now, if a qualifying condition is documented	A dollar-for-dollar reduction in the benefit
Life settlement	Not available at this face amount	—

Riders you may already own

Small policies often carry riders nobody remembers buying. Two are worth checking for immediately.

An accelerated death benefit rider pays a portion of the face amount to the insured while living, on proof of a qualifying condition — usually terminal illness with a life expectancy under twelve or twenty-four months, and on some contracts chronic illness or a nursing home confinement. On many policies this rider was included at no additional premium. The payment reduces the death benefit dollar for dollar and may carry an administrative charge or a discount for early payment, but it is money available now, from a policy that cannot be sold. On a burial-sized policy, the accelerated benefit is frequently the only liquidity the contract will ever produce for the insured. Our explainer on what an accelerated death benefit rider is covers how to file a claim.

A waiver of premium rider stops the premium obligation if the insured becomes totally disabled under the policy’s definition. If the insured is now in a nursing home or has been determined disabled, this rider may already be triggerable, which solves the affordability problem outright without touching the death benefit.

Read the schedule page of the policy, which lists every rider attached and the premium allocated to each. If the rider list is not legible, request a policy summary from the servicer. This is a five-minute request and it periodically finds thousands of dollars of benefit that a family did not know existed.

Pre-need contracts are a different animal entirely

Before you evaluate anything, determine whether what you own is an insurance policy or a pre-need funeral contract. They look similar and they are not the same.

A pre-need arrangement is a contract with a funeral home for specified goods and services, usually funded by a small life insurance policy that has been assigned to the funeral provider. Sometimes the assignment is revocable; often, and especially when the arrangement was made in the course of Medicaid planning, it is irrevocable. An irrevocably assigned pre-need policy cannot be sold, cannot be surrendered for cash, and cannot be redirected to anyone else. The funeral home is the beneficiary and the arrangement is locked.

Pre-need contracts are regulated separately from ordinary life insurance in most states, frequently by a funeral board or a cemetery and funeral bureau rather than solely by the insurance department, and many states impose trust or escrow requirements on the funds. If you are unsure which you have, look for the funeral home’s name anywhere on the paperwork and for the words “irrevocable assignment.” Either one is your answer.

The reason this matters beyond the resale question is Medicaid. An irrevocable pre-need burial arrangement is generally treated as an excluded resource for Medicaid eligibility, which is precisely why it was structured that way. Unwinding it, even if it were possible, could create a countable asset and disrupt eligibility. Do not attempt that without your elder law attorney.

How a small burial policy is treated for Medicaid

If the insured is applying for or receiving Medicaid long-term care benefits, the treatment of a small life policy follows a specific rule that surprises families. Life insurance is excluded from countable resources when the total face value of all policies on that person does not exceed $1,500. Cross that threshold by a dollar and the policies are no longer excluded — at which point the cash surrender value, not the face amount, becomes a countable resource that can push an applicant over the asset limit.

That produces a counterintuitive result. A $10,000 whole life burial policy with $2,200 of cash value is a countable $2,200 asset in most states, even though nobody can spend it without giving up the coverage. Term policies, having no cash value, are generally not countable regardless of face amount.

Separately excluded, in most states and within stated dollar limits, are irrevocable burial funds and burial spaces. This is why converting a countable cash-value policy into an irrevocable funeral arrangement is such a common planning step — and why doing it incorrectly, or inside the look-back window, can create a transfer penalty. We describe the mechanics in our page on the Medicaid face value $1,500 rule, but the decision itself belongs with a licensed elder law attorney in your state, not with us and not with a website. Pine Lake Life Solutions provides education and a free policy review; we do not give legal, tax, or investment advice.

What is genuinely worth doing next

Take fifteen minutes and gather three things: the policy cover page, the most recent premium notice, and the schedule of riders. From those you can answer every question that matters. Is the death benefit level or graded, and has the graded period ended? What riders are attached and is any of them claimable today? What would reduced paid-up produce if you stopped paying? Is the contract assigned to a funeral home?

If the face amount turns out to be larger than you thought, or if the same file drawer contains a term or universal life policy from working years that nobody has looked at in a decade, that is a different conversation and a much more interesting one. It happens often enough that a review of the whole file is worth doing rather than a review of one policy.

You can send the cover page for a free policy review with no fee and no obligation, and you will be told honestly if the answer is that nothing can be done in the resale market — which, for a burial policy, is the most likely outcome. The number is (305) 209-7183. Do not pay anyone an upfront fee to evaluate a small policy, and do not send medical records or account numbers to anyone who contacted you first.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is there any face amount at which a burial policy becomes sellable?

Most institutional buyers set a working minimum near $100,000, and a few will look at $50,000 when the insured’s health picture is compelling. A $5,000 to $25,000 burial policy sits well below both. The only scenario where a smaller policy draws interest is a viatical settlement with a documented terminal diagnosis and a short life expectancy, and even then most burial-sized contracts are still too small.

How do I tell whether my policy has a graded death benefit?

Look on the policy schedule page for language such as graded death benefit, modified death benefit, or a table showing benefit percentages by policy year. If the application asked few or no health questions, a graded structure is likely. During the graded period, usually two or three years, death from natural causes pays back premiums plus interest instead of the full face amount.

My premium notice comes from a company that is not Athene. Why?

Blocks of policies are bought, sold, and reinsured regularly. Athene’s life business traces through several predecessors, and the Aviva USA life block was sold to Global Atlantic and placed with Accordia Life. Whoever sends your premium notice is your servicer and is the company to call. Your policy terms, face amount, and riders are unchanged by any of these transactions.

Should I surrender a small policy for its cash value?

Usually not, and rarely without comparing alternatives first. Surrender values on final expense policies are typically a small fraction of premiums paid. Reduced paid-up insurance keeps permanent coverage in force with no further premiums, and extended term keeps the full face amount for a period of years. Ask the servicer for an illustration of all three before deciding anything.

Can I sell a pre-need funeral policy assigned to a funeral home?

No. If the policy has been irrevocably assigned to a funeral provider, the funeral home holds the benefit and the arrangement cannot be sold, surrendered, or redirected. Irrevocable assignments are common in Medicaid planning precisely because they make the asset unavailable. Check the paperwork for a funeral home name and the words irrevocable assignment before doing anything else.

Does a small life policy affect Medicaid eligibility?

It can. Life insurance is excluded when the total face value on the insured is $1,500 or less. Above that threshold the policy’s cash surrender value becomes a countable resource, which can affect eligibility for long-term care benefits. Term policies with no cash value are generally not countable. Confirm your state’s treatment with an elder law attorney before making any change.

Related Reading

• Policy Too Small To Sell
• Carrier Merged Who Owns Policy
• Waiting Two Years After Issue
• Nonforfeiture Options Compared
• What Is An Accelerated Death Benefit Rider
• Medicaid Face Value 1500 Rule
• Can I Sell A Final Expense Policy
• Minimum Policy Size For A Life Settlement

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Pine Lake Life Solutions does not purchase life insurance policies and does not provide legal, tax, or investment advice. Information provided is for educational purposes only. Eligibility for any option, including life settlements, is not guaranteed and depends on individual circumstances, policy terms, underwriting, and market conditions. Consult independent legal, tax, or financial professionals before making decisions regarding a life insurance policy.