August 7, 2026
3:24 pm

Can You Sell a Great West Life Term Life Policy? (2026)

A Great West Life term policy is worth something on the secondary market only for as long as its conversion privilege is still open. Buyers in the life settlement market are purchasing a future death benefit. A level term contract that will expire while the insured is still alive produces nothing, so the entire question turns on one clause buried in the contract: the term conversion rider, and the date it shuts.

That date is almost never the date the level premium period ends. On most term chassis written in the 1990s and 2000s, the conversion window closes at the earlier of a stated policy anniversary or a stated attained age. A 20-year level term issued at age 52 may stop being convertible at policy year 10 or at attained age 70, whichever comes first, even though the premium stays level for a full two decades. People discover this at exactly the wrong moment, which is why the first task is reading the rider, not requesting an offer.

There is a second wrinkle specific to the Great West name: the company that issued your policy is probably not the company answering the phone today. Sorting out which legal entity is on the cover page determines where you send the in-force illustration request and which state insurance department has jurisdiction if something goes wrong.

In This Article

Find the Conversion Deadline Before You Do Anything Else
Which “Great West” Company Is Actually on Your Cover Page
How a Converted Term Policy Is Actually Valued
When the Honest Answer Is That There Is No Market
The Paperwork That Moves a Great West File Forward
Regulation: Colorado Domicile, Your State’s Rules
Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Sell a Great West Life Term Life Policy? (2026)

Find the Conversion Deadline Before You Do Anything Else

Pull the policy and look for a rider or contract provision titled “Conversion Privilege,” “Right to Convert,” or “Exchange Option.” You are looking for three specific pieces of information, and all three matter:

The last date you may convert. Expressed either as a policy anniversary, an attained age, or the earlier of the two. This is the hard stop.
What you may convert into. Some riders promise conversion to “any permanent plan then offered by the company.” Others restrict you to a single designated conversion product, which may be an expensive guaranteed universal life chassis priced specifically for conversions.
Whether evidence of insurability is required. A true conversion right requires none. If the contract makes conversion contingent on satisfactory health evidence, it is not a conversion privilege in the sense buyers care about, and an impaired insured will not clear it.

The reason this ordering matters is arithmetic. A policy that can be converted without underwriting to a permanent contract carries real optionality for someone who is now uninsurable. A policy whose conversion window closed in 2019 is, in secondary market terms, an expiring promise. Providers will not bid on it, brokers will not shop it, and any party telling you otherwise is not describing the market accurately. If you want the mechanics in plain language before you read the rider, our explainer on what a term conversion rider actually gives you is written for exactly this moment.

If you cannot find the rider, request a full certified copy of the contract from the servicing carrier in writing. Insurers are obligated to provide policy documents to the owner of record, and a certified copy resolves arguments about which version of the form applies.

Which “Great West” Company Is Actually on Your Cover Page

Three distinct organizations have used variations of the Great West name, and they are in different countries and different regulatory systems. Confusing them wastes weeks.

Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company was the U.S. entity, domiciled in Colorado with offices in Greenwood Village, and regulated by the Colorado Division of Insurance. In January 2019 it agreed to transfer substantially all of its individual life insurance and annuity business to Protective Life Insurance Company, and that transaction closed on June 1, 2019. In practical terms, if you hold a U.S. individual Great-West life policy, servicing, billing, and in-force illustration requests generally run through Protective Life today, even though the contractual obligations trace back to the original issuing entity. The remaining Great-West Life & Annuity retirement business was later rebranded under the Empower name.

The Great-West Life Assurance Company was a separate Canadian insurer headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba. On January 1, 2020 it amalgamated with London Life Insurance Company and The Great-West Life Assurance Company’s affiliate Canada Life to operate as The Canada Life Assurance Company. Canadian-issued policies are not sold into the U.S. life settlement market; Canada does not permit life settlements in most provinces, and a Canadian contract is outside the scope of anything described here.

Great Western Insurance Company is a different company again, a Utah-domiciled pre-need and final expense insurer, and it is discussed on its own page. If the cover page reads “Great Western,” not “Great-West,” you are holding a different carrier’s contract.

The reliable way to settle this is the NAIC company code printed on the policy jacket or the annual statement. Enter it in the NAIC Consumer Information Source at cis.naic.org and you will get the current legal entity, its state of domicile, and its complaint history. Do that before you sign anything that authorizes a third party to contact the carrier on your behalf.

How a Converted Term Policy Is Actually Valued

Assume the conversion window is open. What happens next is not a simple percentage of the face amount. A provider builds a price out of four inputs:

Life expectancy. Two independent medical underwriting firms review the insured’s records and produce a mortality estimate, usually expressed in months with a mortality multiplier against a standard table. Nothing moves until those reports exist, and they are the single largest driver of price.

The cost of carrying the converted policy. After conversion, the buyer owns a permanent contract and must fund it, often for many years. Conversion pricing is typically expensive because the carrier is accepting a self-selected pool of converters. A high minimum premium on the conversion product can consume most of the theoretical value of the deal.

The face amount. Most institutional buyers do not look at policies under $100,000 of death benefit because fixed transaction costs — two life expectancy reports, legal review, escrow, tracking — do not scale down. See what the practical minimum policy size is before you assume a small term policy qualifies.

The carrier’s financial strength and administrative behavior. Buyers price in the risk that a carrier is slow to process ownership changes or resistant to conversions.

The arithmetic that follows is unforgiving. If the insured’s life expectancy is fifteen years and the converted policy needs $18,000 a year to stay in force, the buyer is committing roughly $270,000 of premium against a $250,000 death benefit. No offer is coming. The same insured with a four-year life expectancy on the same policy is a straightforward transaction. Health, not face amount, decides whether the file works.

Situation	Secondary market value	What usually makes more sense
Conversion window open, insured 70+ with significant health impairment	Realistic — worth pricing	Collect LE reports and shop the file through a licensed broker
Conversion window open, insured healthy, under 65	Very unlikely	Partial conversion to keep the coverage you need affordably
Conversion deadline already passed	Essentially none	Compare replacement coverage now versus letting the term run out
Conversion requires evidence of insurability	None if the insured is impaired	Apply anyway if healthy; otherwise plan around the expiry date
Face amount under $100,000, convertible	Marginal; specialty buyers only	Partial conversion or an accelerated benefit rider if one exists

How a Converted Term Policy Is Actually Valued

When the Honest Answer Is That There Is No Market

Several fact patterns end the inquiry, and it is better to hear them now than after sixty days of medical records collection:

The conversion deadline has passed. An unconvertible term policy has essentially no market value regardless of face amount or the insured’s health. There is no death benefit to buy because the contract will terminate at the end of the level period.
Conversion requires new underwriting. If the insured is impaired, the right is illusory.
The insured is in good health and under 65. Long life expectancies price policies out of the market. That is good news about the insured and bad news about the transaction.
The face amount is small. A $50,000 convertible term policy rarely clears the cost of the transaction, though a specialty buyer occasionally looks at smaller files when the life expectancy is short.

If any of these apply, the real question changes from “what is it worth” to “how do I keep coverage I still need, at a cost I can carry.” Converting a slice rather than the whole policy is the most under-used option in this situation: most conversion riders permit partial conversion, so a $500,000 term policy can become $100,000 of permanent coverage at a fraction of the premium, with the remainder allowed to expire. That single move has salvaged more coverage for more families than any secondary market transaction. Our comparison of converting versus selling walks the numbers side by side.

The Paperwork That Moves a Great West File Forward

Whatever you decide, the same short stack of documents controls the outcome, and you can gather all of it without committing to anything:

The policy cover page or specifications page. Issuing company, policy number, issue date, face amount, insured’s name, level term period, and rider list. This one page answers most questions.
A written statement of conversion rights. Ask the servicing carrier, in writing, for the exact last date conversion is available and the list of products currently available for conversion, along with the premium at the insured’s current attained age.
An in-force illustration for the proposed conversion product. Ask for it at both current assumptions and guaranteed maximum charges. The guaranteed column is the one that tells you how long the policy survives if the carrier exercises every right it has.
A beneficiary and assignment status confirmation. An irrevocable beneficiary or a collateral assignment to a lender must be resolved before ownership can change hands.

Requesting documents costs nothing and creates no obligation. If you are not sure which page of your contract is the cover page, this short guide on locating the policy cover page shows what to look for. A free policy review at Pine Lake Life Solutions reads those documents and tells you plainly whether the conversion window is open, what the conversion premium would be, and whether the file has any realistic secondary market path — including when the answer is no.

Regulation: Colorado Domicile, Your State’s Rules

Two different regulators matter here, and people routinely mix them up. The carrier’s domicile state — Colorado, in the case of the U.S. Great-West entity, through the Colorado Division of Insurance — governs the insurer’s solvency, reserves, and market conduct. That is where a complaint about the company’s handling of your policy ultimately lands, though you can and should file with your own state department first.

The state where the policy owner resides governs the settlement transaction itself. Roughly forty-three states plus the District of Columbia have enacted life settlement or viatical settlement statutes, most of them derived from either the NAIC Viatical Settlements Model Act or the NCOIL Life Settlements Model Act. Those statutes license providers and brokers, prescribe the contract forms, require disclosure of alternatives to a sale, and impose a rescission period — commonly fifteen days from receipt of proceeds, though the exact figure is set state by state. Colorado regulates viatical and life settlement activity within Title 10 of the Colorado Revised Statutes and licenses the participants through its Division of Insurance.

Verify licensing before you share medical records. Every state department of insurance publishes a searchable license lookup, and a legitimate provider or broker will hand you their license number without being asked twice. If a party resists that question, treat it as the answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who services my Great West Life policy now?

For U.S. individual life policies, servicing generally moved to Protective Life Insurance Company after the June 1, 2019 transfer of Great-West Life & Annuity’s individual life and annuity business. Billing notices and correspondence usually carry the Protective name. Canadian policies issued by The Great-West Life Assurance Company became part of The Canada Life Assurance Company following the January 1, 2020 amalgamation and are administered in Canada.

Can I sell a term policy that I have not converted yet?

Yes, if the conversion right is still open. The standard sequence is that the buyer prices the policy assuming conversion, and the conversion is executed at or immediately after closing, frequently by the new owner. What you cannot do is sell a term policy whose conversion window has closed, because there is no permanent death benefit for a buyer to acquire.

Does converting the policy myself first get me a better price?

Usually not, and it can hurt. Converting first means you start paying permanent premiums that are far higher than your term premium, with no guarantee an offer follows. Most brokers prefer to market the policy while the conversion right is intact and let the transaction fund the conversion. Ask any advisor who recommends converting first to explain exactly why in writing.

What if my term policy has a return of premium feature?

A return of premium term policy accumulates a scheduled cash-like benefit payable if the insured survives the level period. That changes the math meaningfully, because surrendering for the ROP benefit becomes a real alternative to both conversion and a sale. Get the exact current ROP value in writing from the carrier and compare all three paths before deciding anything.

How long does a life settlement take from start to finish?

Plan on 60 to 120 days for a straightforward file. Gathering medical records is the slowest step and is largely outside anyone’s control, since it depends on how quickly physician offices respond. Life expectancy underwriting adds two to four weeks, bidding a week or two, and closing plus the state-mandated rescission period adds several more weeks after an offer is accepted.

Is there any value in a term policy on someone who has already died?

That is not a settlement question at all — it is a claim. If the insured died while the policy was in force, the named beneficiary files a death claim with the carrier and receives the full face amount. Even a lapsed policy is worth checking, because grace periods, reinstatement rights, and premium paid in advance sometimes mean coverage was in force on the date of death.

Find out what your policy is worth — free, confidential, no obligation.

A 15-minute educational review covers your eligibility, every alternative, and a realistic view of what each path would net you.

Call (305) 209-7183 · Request a review online →

Table of Contents