Four quite different contracts get described as “term life,” and only some of them carry a conversion right worth anything to a buyer. Before you can decide whether a Bankers Life term policy has value, you need to know which of the four you are holding, because the answer changes the deadline you are chasing and, in one case, changes which policy you should actually be looking at.
The underlying rule is constant. Institutional buyers in the secondary market purchase death benefits that will eventually be claimed, and level term insurance is built to expire without paying. So a buyer is never valuing the term coverage itself. A buyer is valuing the option written into a conversion provision: the contractual right to exchange the term policy for permanent coverage at the insured’s original risk class, without a new exam and without new health questions. When health has declined since issue, that option can be worth far more than anyone in the family suspects. When it has expired, the policy has essentially no market value and nobody can change that.
Bankers Life reaches its customers through a career agent field force focused on the middle-income senior market, usually alongside Medicare supplement, long-term care, and annuity products. That has one practical advantage: unlike carriers that sell through independent agencies which later close, there is often still an active agent relationship and a servicing office you can reach. Use it.
In This Article
- Which of the four shapes do you have?
- The conversion clause and why it closes early
- The special case: a term rider on a permanent policy
- Bankers Life and CNO: the corporate picture
- What buyers actually pay for, and the thresholds
- When there is no market, and what to check instead
- What to send for a review
- Frequently Asked Questions
Which of the four shapes do you have?
Read the schedule page and match it to one of these.
Level term. A fixed premium and a fixed death benefit for a stated period — ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty years — after which the contract typically continues on an annually renewable basis at sharply higher rates until an expiry age. This is the shape most likely to carry a meaningful conversion right, and the shape most of this page addresses.
Annually renewable term. The premium increases every year from the start, following an attached rate table. There is no level period to run out. Some annually renewable contracts carry conversion rights and some do not, and the rates in the later years become punishing regardless. If your premium has gone up every single year since issue, this is what you have, and our page on a premium increase after age 80 covers where those tables end up.
A term rider attached to a permanent base policy. Common when coverage was sold as a package: a whole life or universal life base with a term rider layered on for additional death benefit during working years. The rider’s conversion rights, if any, are governed by the rider language and are frequently narrower than a standalone term contract’s. This case deserves its own section below.
Group or association term. Coverage obtained through an employer, a union, or an affinity organization. The certificate holder usually does not own a policy in the ordinary sense, and rights on leaving the group are governed by conversion and portability provisions in the group contract rather than by anything you hold individually.
If the document you have is one or two pages and calls itself a certificate, you are probably in the fourth category. If it is a twenty-page contract with a form number, you are in the first, second, or third.
The conversion clause and why it closes early
Find the provision headed “Conversion Privilege,” “Conversion Option,” or “Right to Convert.” It is in the contract, not on the premium notice and not in any brochure. Two facts come out of it.
The expiration. Carriers express this as a stated number of policy years from issue, a stated attained age of the insured, or the earlier of the two. That third construction is where people lose money. A twenty-year level term issued at fifty-eight, level to seventy-eight, might permit conversion only through policy year ten or attained age sixty-eight, whichever arrives first. The right dies a decade before the premium jumps and the policy becomes an obvious problem, and by the time most families start paying attention the window has closed.
The eligible plans. Some provisions permit conversion into any permanent product the carrier currently issues. Others name a single designated conversion plan, which may be priced on older assumptions and cost more than the carrier’s general lineup. That price is not a footnote — it is a direct input into what any buyer could pay, because the buyer projects paying that premium annually for the rest of the insured’s life.
Whatever the contract appears to say, get the carrier’s written confirmation of the exact expiration date and the available plans. A representative’s verbal reassurance is not a document and will not be accepted as one by anyone who later evaluates the policy. Our explainer on what a term conversion rider is covers the standard variations, and our page on converting term then selling walks through the sequence if the window is open.
One instruction that matters more than any other on this page: do not exercise the conversion before the policy has been reviewed. Converting first and asking afterward means committing to permanent premiums to create an asset that may draw no interest at all.
The special case: a term rider on a permanent policy
If your term coverage is a rider attached to a whole life or universal life base contract, several things change and most of them are not obvious.
First, the rider is generally not a separate asset. You cannot sell the rider by itself; the base policy is what would be transacted, with the rider going along or being dropped as part of the restructuring. So the analysis has to start with the base contract’s face amount, cash value, and premium structure, not with the rider.
Second, the rider’s own conversion language may differ from what a standalone term policy would carry — sometimes a shorter window, sometimes a narrower list of plans, sometimes no conversion right at all. Read the rider text specifically rather than the base policy’s provisions.
Third, and most usefully: if you have been paying for a term rider you no longer need, dropping it reduces the total premium immediately without touching the base coverage. That is a real solution to an affordability problem that costs nothing and requires no transaction. Families frequently overlook it because the premium arrives as a single number and nobody has broken it into components.
Ask the servicer for a current policy summary showing the base face amount, each rider, and the premium allocated to each. Then decide which components you actually want. The base policy, if it is permanent and of meaningful size, is the piece worth evaluating for the secondary market — not the rider.
| Term shape | How to recognize it | Conversion outlook |
|---|---|---|
| Level term | Fixed premium and death benefit for a stated period | Usually carries a conversion right with a stated deadline |
| Annually renewable term | Premium rises every year from issue, per an attached table | Varies; rates become punishing in later years regardless |
| Term rider on a permanent policy | Appears as a line item on a whole life or UL schedule page | Narrower rights; evaluate the base policy instead |
| Group or association certificate | One or two pages, called a certificate, tied to a group | Governed by the group contract’s conversion and portability terms |
Bankers Life and CNO: the corporate picture
Bankers Life and Casualty Company was founded in 1879 and built its business in Chicago, Illinois. It is today part of CNO Financial Group, headquartered in Carmel, Indiana, which also operates the Washington National and Colonial Penn brands. Confirm the state of domicile shown on your policy’s face page rather than assuming it, since that determines which insurance department handles a complaint against the insurer and carriers do occasionally redomesticate.
The history is worth a paragraph because it worries people who half-remember it. Conseco acquired Bankers Life in 1992. Conseco filed for Chapter 11 protection in December 2002 and emerged the following year, and the holding company was renamed CNO Financial Group in 2010. Insurance operating subsidiaries are separately capitalized and separately regulated from their holding companies, and claims continued to be paid throughout. Your contract terms, face amount, and conversion rights were not altered by any of it. CNO has also used reinsurance to transfer legacy blocks, particularly in long-term care, which occasionally means a premium notice arrives from an administrator you do not recognize. That does not change your policy either.
On product names, we are not going to assert that a particular Bankers Life term product is open for new business in 2026 without verifying it. Your rights are set by the form number on the contract and the riders attached to it, not by the plan name in the marketing material.
Jurisdiction: whichever state regulates the insurer, it does not regulate the sale of your policy. Life settlement transactions are governed by the law of the state where the policy owner lives, which sets the required disclosures, the licensing standards applied to any provider or broker, and the rescission period after signing. Verify any counterparty’s license with your own state’s department before signing anything.
What buyers actually pay for, and the thresholds
Assume the conversion right is open. Whether an offer follows depends on a small number of variables, and it is worth understanding them because they explain outcomes that otherwise feel arbitrary.
Projected life expectancy. This is the dominant input. Buyers commission independent life expectancy reports from medical underwriting firms, which produce a projected mortality curve from the insured’s records. A shorter projection means fewer years of premium outlay and a claim arriving sooner in present-value terms, which raises value. This is why declining health increases what a policy is worth — an uncomfortable fact that is nonetheless how the arithmetic works. Our page on how buyers price a policy walks through the full calculation.
The premium required to keep it in force. On a converted term policy, this is the permanent premium. High premiums consume the buyer’s return and can eliminate an offer entirely.
Death benefit size. Most institutional buyers apply a working minimum near $100,000, with a few looking at $50,000 in unusually strong situations. Below that, the fixed costs of underwriting, legal review, escrow, and decades of servicing cannot be recovered. Our page on the minimum policy size for a life settlement explains where the line really sits.
Insured age. The standard market centers on insureds roughly sixty-five and older. Younger insureds are considered when there is significant documented impairment.
What is not on the list: cash value, which term policies do not have and which does not factor into pricing anyway. Buyers are valuing a future death benefit, not an account balance.
When there is no market, and what to check instead
Be direct with yourself about this. A Bankers Life term policy has no realistic resale market when the conversion window has closed, when the face amount is well under $100,000, when the insured is under sixty-five and in good health, when the conversion product would cost more than the policy is economically worth, or when the family still needs the coverage.
In those cases, check three things before doing anything else. Whether an accelerated death benefit or terminal illness rider is attached, since many term policies carry one at no extra premium and it can pay part of the face amount to the insured during a qualifying illness. Whether a waiver of premium rider is triggerable, which solves an affordability problem outright if the insured meets the policy’s disability definition. And whether the contract is a return-of-premium term policy, in which case holding it to the end of the level period may return your premiums — surrendering early usually forfeits that.
If none of those applies and the coverage genuinely is not needed, stopping payment is a legitimate decision. Make it deliberately rather than by missing a notice, and confirm first that no rider is claimable. Our page on a term policy expiring covers the sequence.
One warning. Seniors holding term policies receive unsolicited calls about them, and the pitches range from merely aggressive to outright fraudulent. Nobody legitimate asks for an upfront fee to evaluate a policy, and nobody legitimate needs your Social Security number or bank details before establishing that a policy is even worth pursuing. Our page on a cold call about your policy lists the specific tells and how to report them.
What to send for a review
Three documents answer everything. The policy cover page, showing the insured’s name, policy number, form number, issue date, face amount, and level premium period. The most recent premium notice, confirming the policy is in force and identifying the servicer. And the conversion rider or the rider schedule, if you can locate it.
From those, a reviewer can tell you which of the four term shapes you hold, whether the conversion right appears open, whether the face amount clears the practical market minimum, and how urgent the timing is. That is enough to know whether to pursue anything further, and it costs nothing.
Pine Lake Life Solutions provides education and a free policy review at (305) 209-7183. We do not provide legal, tax, or investment advice, and anything with tax or estate consequences should go past your own CPA or attorney before you sign. If the answer is that the policy should be kept, or converted and kept, or simply allowed to run out, that is what you will be told. Our general overview of how to sell a term life policy covers the same territory without carrier specifics.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I tell whether I have level term or annually renewable term?
Look at your premium history. If the amount has been identical every year since issue, you have level term for that period. If it has increased every single year from the beginning, you have annually renewable term and there is an attached rate table in the contract showing what each future year costs. The schedule page will also state the level period if one exists.
Can I sell a term rider attached to my whole life policy?
Not on its own. A rider is part of the base contract rather than a separate asset, so any transaction would involve the base policy. If the rider is coverage you no longer need, the more useful move is usually dropping it to reduce the total premium, which requires no transaction at all. Ask the servicer for a premium breakdown by component.
Did the Conseco bankruptcy put my Bankers Life policy at risk?
Insurance operating companies are capitalized and regulated separately from their holding companies. Claims continued to be paid through the 2002 holding company reorganization that eventually became CNO Financial Group, and policy terms, face amounts, and conversion rights were not altered. Changes you may have noticed in servicing generally reflect reinsurance or administrative transfers rather than anything affecting your contract.
Why would a buyer pay more for a policy on someone in poor health?
Pricing follows projected life expectancy. A shorter projection means the buyer pays premiums for fewer years and receives the death benefit sooner, both of which raise present value. An insured in strong health with a long life expectancy usually draws no offer rather than a small one. Independent medical underwriting reports are what establish the projection.
Someone called offering to buy my term policy. Is that legitimate?
Treat it with caution. Legitimate reviews never require an upfront fee, and no one needs your Social Security number or bank information before establishing whether a policy is even worth pursuing. Verify any company’s license with your own state insurance department before providing anything, and report high-pressure or fee-demanding approaches to that department.
What is the single most common mistake with a term policy?
Assuming the conversion deadline coincides with the end of the level premium period. It frequently arrives years earlier, expressed as a policy year or attained age, whichever comes first. By the time a large renewal premium prompts someone to look at the contract, the conversion right has often expired, and expired conversion rights cannot be restored by anyone.
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Related Reading
- Sell Term Life Policy
- What Is A Term Conversion Rider
- Convert Term Then Sell
- Term Policy Expiring
- Premium Increase After Age 80
- Minimum Policy Size For A Life Settlement
- How Buyers Price A Policy
- Cold Call About My Policy
- Sell My Bankers Life Whole Life Policy
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.