August 7, 2026
3:14 pm

Can You Sell an Athene Term Life Policy? (2026)

Two things have to be true before an Athene-branded term policy is worth anything in the resale market: the conversion right must still be open, and someone must still be willing to issue the permanent policy you convert into. On a term contract from a carrier that has exited retail life insurance, the second condition is not automatic. That is the wrinkle that makes an Athene term policy different from a term policy at a company still writing new business every day.

Term insurance has no residual value on its own. It is built to expire, and the great majority of level term policies do exactly that. Institutional buyers in the life settlement market purchase death benefits that will eventually be claimed, which means they will not pay for coverage scheduled to disappear. What they will pay for is the option buried in a conversion rider — the contractual right to exchange the term policy for permanent coverage at the insured’s original underwriting class, without a new exam and without new health questions. When health has deteriorated since the policy was issued, that option can be the single most valuable thing a family owns and has forgotten about.

Before you can evaluate any of it, you need to establish a more basic fact: which company actually holds your policy today. With Athene, that is a real question, and the answer is not always Athene.

In This Article

Step one: establish who actually holds the policy
Reading the conversion provision: the two dates that matter
The closed-block problem nobody warns you about
Whether the numbers work: age, health, and face amount
The alternatives, ranked honestly
What to gather, and who regulates what
Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Sell an Athene Term Life Policy? (2026)

Step one: establish who actually holds the policy

Athene in 2026 is principally an annuity and retirement services business. Athene Annuity and Life Company is domiciled in Iowa with offices in West Des Moines, putting it under the Iowa Insurance Division. Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company is a Delaware-domiciled entity, and Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company of New York answers to the New York State Department of Financial Services. Athene Holding Ltd. was Bermuda-based and completed its merger with Apollo Global Management effective at the start of 2022.

The reason a term policy might carry the Athene name is corporate history rather than product strategy. Athene acquired Liberty Life Insurance Company from Royal Bank of Canada in 2011 and Presidential Life in 2012, renaming both. Then, in October 2013, Athene acquired Aviva USA — and in the same transaction, Aviva USA’s life insurance business was sold on to Global Atlantic Financial Group and placed into Accordia Life and Annuity Company. The annuity operation was renamed Athene Annuity and Life Company. The life block went elsewhere.

So the practical instruction is: look at your most recent premium notice. Whatever company name is on it, and whatever address the payment goes to, that is the servicer. That is who holds your conversion right, who has your form on file, and who you call. Chasing an Athene service line for a policy administered by Accordia will cost you weeks you may not have. Our page on what happens when a carrier merged and who owns the policy explains why none of these transactions changes the terms of your contract. Your face amount, your riders, and your conversion rights survive intact — the administrator changes, the promise does not.

Reading the conversion provision: the two dates that matter

Open the contract and find the section titled “Conversion Privilege,” “Conversion Option,” or “Right to Convert.” Ignore the marketing brochure and ignore the premium notice; neither contains this information. You are extracting two facts.

The expiration. Conversion rights end on a date the contract specifies, and industry practice expresses it in several ways — a fixed number of policy years from issue, a fixed attained age of the insured, or the earlier of the two. A 20-year level term issued at age 52 might be convertible only through policy year 10 or through attained age 65, whichever arrives first. That closes the window seven years before the level premium period ends. People routinely assume they have until the term expires. They frequently do not.

The eligible plans. Some conversion provisions let you convert into any permanent policy the carrier currently issues. Others restrict conversion to a specific designated conversion product. Read this closely, because on a closed block it is where the trouble is.

If the contract is missing, request a duplicate from the servicer and, in the same request, ask for a written statement of your current conversion eligibility including the exact last date and the products available. Get it in writing. A representative saying “you should be fine” over the phone is not a document, and nobody evaluating the policy will accept it as one. If your paperwork is gone entirely, the recovery steps in our guide on a policy lost with no paperwork apply here without modification.

The closed-block problem nobody warns you about

Here is the complication specific to term policies sitting in a block whose carrier has stepped back from retail life insurance. The conversion provision promises you permanent coverage. It does not always promise you good permanent coverage, and it cannot promise you a product the company no longer offers.

When a carrier stops writing new permanent life business, the conversion product available to in-force term holders is often a single legacy universal life or whole life form, sometimes priced on old assumptions, sometimes considerably more expensive than what a healthy applicant could buy on the open market today. The carrier is meeting its contractual obligation. It is just meeting it with the only product it still has.

That premium level is not a technicality. It is a direct input into what any institutional buyer would pay for the converted policy. The buyer projects paying that premium every year for the rest of the insured’s life, discounts the death benefit back to present value, and subtracts. A conversion product with a punishing cost of insurance schedule can turn a policy that looked attractive on face amount alone into one that draws no bids at all.

This is exactly why the order of operations matters. Get the actual converted premium quoted in dollars, on your specific insured at your specific age, before you exercise the conversion. Not an estimate, not a range — a quote. Then evaluate. Converting first and asking questions afterward means you may have committed to years of premium payments to create an asset with no buyer. Our page comparing a life settlement against a term conversion lays out how those two paths diverge.

What you find on the policy	What it means for value	Next step
Conversion right open, quoted permanent premium reasonable	Potentially marketable	Review before converting, not after
Conversion right open, only an expensive legacy product available	Value likely reduced or eliminated	Get the premium in dollars, then re-evaluate
Conversion window already expired	Essentially no market value	Check riders; consider letting it run
Face amount under $100,000	Below most buyers’ working minimum	Look at partial conversion or premium relief
Insured under 65, no health impairment	Long life expectancy, low present value	Keep coverage; revisit at the conversion deadline
Insured terminally ill, term still in force	May qualify as a viatical	Assemble medical records promptly

The closed-block problem nobody warns you about

Whether the numbers work: age, health, and face amount

Assume for a moment that the conversion right is open and the converted premium is reasonable. Three further variables decide whether there is a market.

Face amount. Institutional buyers generally apply a working minimum around $100,000, with some looking at $50,000 in unusually strong health situations. This is not arbitrary. Life expectancy underwriting, legal review, escrow, and decades of premium administration cost roughly the same regardless of size, so small policies cannot carry the overhead.

Age. The standard market is oriented toward insureds roughly 65 and older. Younger insureds are considered when there is significant health impairment, because pricing follows projected life expectancy rather than the calendar.

Health. This is the counterintuitive part for most people. Deteriorated health raises the value of the policy to a buyer, because it shortens the projected premium-paying period and brings the claim closer in present-value terms. A vigorous 68-year-old with a clean medical file will often receive no offer, while a 68-year-old with congestive heart failure and a documented cardiology history may receive several. That is uncomfortable to read and it is how the pricing works.

Note what is not on this list: cash value. Term policies have none, and it makes no difference. Buyers are pricing a future death benefit, not an account balance. A term policy with an open conversion right and a genuinely impaired insured can be worth more than a whole life policy with substantial cash value and a healthy one.

The alternatives, ranked honestly

Selling is one option among several, and for most people reading this page it is not the best one. Work down this list in order.

Keep the policy if the coverage is still needed. A surviving spouse with no pension continuation, a dependent adult child, or a mortgage that outlives the borrower are all reasons the death benefit is worth more to your family than any cash offer. Solve the premium problem instead of selling the protection.
Convert part of the coverage. Most conversion provisions permit partial conversion. Converting $200,000 of a $600,000 policy produces a permanent premium you can actually pay and keeps meaningful coverage in force.
Check for riders you already own. An accelerated death benefit rider, a terminal illness rider, or a waiver of premium rider may already be claimable and cost nothing additional. These are frequently attached and rarely remembered.
Consider a return of premium feature. If the policy is a return-of-premium term contract, letting it run to the end of the level period may return your premiums. Check before you cancel anything.
Then, and only then, evaluate a sale. If the coverage genuinely is not needed, the conversion right is open, the converted premium is workable, and the face amount and health picture clear the market’s thresholds, a review is worth doing.

If the conversion window has already closed and the policy has no cash value and no riders, the honest answer is that the contract has essentially no market value. There is no broker skilled enough to change that, and anyone claiming otherwise while requesting an upfront fee should be reported to your state insurance department. Our overview of how to sell a term life policy covers the same territory generally.

What to gather, and who regulates what

A useful review needs three documents and no sensitive data. Send the policy cover page showing the insured, the policy number, the form number, the issue date, the face amount, and the level premium period. Add the most recent premium notice, which identifies your actual servicer. Add the conversion rider if you can find it. That is enough for someone to tell you whether the policy is worth pursuing.

One jurisdictional point that saves confusion. The Iowa Insurance Division, the Delaware Department of Insurance, or the New York Department of Financial Services oversees whichever Athene entity issued your contract, and those departments handle complaints about the carrier’s conduct. None of them governs the sale of your policy. Life settlement transactions are regulated in the state where the policy owner resides, and it is your state’s statute that sets the required disclosures, the licensing standard for any provider or broker involved, and the length of the rescission period after you sign. Verify any counterparty’s license with your own state’s department before you sign anything.

Pine Lake Life Solutions offers education and a free policy review at (305) 209-7183. We do not give legal, tax, or investment advice, and any transaction with tax or estate consequences should go past your own CPA or attorney first. There is never a legitimate reason to pay an upfront fee to have a policy evaluated, and no reason to hand medical records or account numbers to anyone who contacted you out of the blue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Athene still sell individual term life insurance?

Athene operates today primarily as an annuity and retirement services company rather than a retail life insurer. Term contracts carrying the Athene name generally originate from predecessor companies such as Liberty Life, Presidential Life, or Aviva USA. Check your premium notice to identify the company actually servicing the policy, since parts of that life business were transferred to other administrators after 2013.

My policy says Aviva but I was told Athene owns it. Which is right?

Both statements have a grain of truth. Athene acquired Aviva USA in 2013, but in the same transaction the life insurance business was sold to Global Atlantic and placed into Accordia Life and Annuity Company. The annuity operation kept the Athene name. Whichever company sends your premium notice is your servicer, and your original policy terms are unaffected by any of it.

What if the conversion product costs more than I can pay?

That is common on closed blocks, and it is a real constraint rather than a negotiating position. Two things help. Ask whether a partial conversion is permitted, which scales the premium down proportionally. And get the premium quoted in actual dollars before converting, because the number directly determines what any buyer would pay for the converted policy.

Can I sell a term policy without converting it first?

Generally no, with one exception. Standard life settlement buyers require permanent coverage that can be maintained until a claim is paid, so conversion happens before or as part of the transaction. The exception is a viatical settlement, where a documented terminal illness places the expected claim inside the remaining level term period. That path depends on medical evidence, not on the policy alone.

Does poor health make my policy more valuable or less?

More valuable, which strikes most people as backwards. Buyers price on projected life expectancy. A shorter life expectancy means fewer years of premium outlay and a claim closer in time, both of which raise present value. A healthy insured with a long life expectancy typically draws no offer rather than a small one. Documented medical history is what supports the pricing.

Which state’s law governs if I sell the policy?

The state where you, the policy owner, reside. That state’s life settlement statute sets the disclosures you must receive, the licensing requirements for any provider or broker involved, and the rescission period during which you can undo the sale. The carrier’s domicile, whether Iowa, Delaware, or elsewhere, governs the insurer’s regulation but not your transaction.

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