Can You Sell a Voya Term Life Policy? (2026)

Individual policy or group certificate?

The document tells you in its first two lines. A certificate of coverage naming an employer, association, or trust as the policyholder means group coverage. A policy naming you as owner means an individual contract.

Why it decides everything: a life settlement is a transfer of policy ownership, and only the owner can transfer. Under a group arrangement the insurer issues one master policy to the plan sponsor, and what you hold is evidence of coverage under it. You may be the insured and you may have named the beneficiary, but you are not the owner, so there is nothing for you to sell. No broker relationship changes that; it is the structure of the product. Our page on whether you can sell a group life insurance policy covers the general case.

What group coverage does offer is a conversion right, ordinarily exercisable within about 31 days of the date coverage ends because of termination, retirement, or a drop below the hours threshold. Conversion exchanges the group coverage for an individual permanent policy with no new medical underwriting. Portability, which some plans offer alongside conversion, continues group term coverage on direct bill — but the master policy still belongs to the group, so it still produces nothing you own. Some plans extinguish the conversion right the moment portability is elected, which is the trap in this area. Get your plan’s rule in writing before choosing.

If you hold an individual policy, keep reading. If you hold a certificate, the conversion decision comes first and the value question comes second.

Who holds your individual Voya term policy now

Voya Financial, headquartered in New York, is the successor to ING Groep’s United States operations, separated from the Dutch parent and taken public in 2013 before adopting the Voya name in 2014. Its individual life business, including Security Life of Denver Insurance Company — a Colorado-domiciled insurer overseen by the Colorado Division of Insurance — was sold to Resolution Life Group Holdings in a transaction that closed in January 2021.

A related transaction is frequently confused with it: Voya’s closed block variable annuity segment was sold to Venerable in 2018, and Venerable’s principal insurance subsidiary, Venerable Insurance and Annuity Company, is Iowa-domiciled and was formerly named Voya Insurance and Annuity Company. That deal involved annuities, not life insurance. If you are holding Venerable correspondence, you are looking at an annuity relationship, not your term policy.

Resolution Life specializes in acquiring and administering in-force life blocks rather than writing new business, and its own corporate ownership has continued to evolve — Nippon Life Insurance Company agreed in late 2024 to acquire Resolution Life. Rather than rely on any article for the current parent, ask your servicer to state in writing which entity administers your contract today and to whom correspondence should be directed.

What none of this changed is your policy. A transfer of a block alters who administers the contract and who stands behind it financially; it never alters a term already issued. Your conversion provision, premium schedule, riders, and any return-of-premium feature are exactly what the contract said on delivery. Our page on what happens when a carrier merged and who owns the policy explains the rule.

Conversion rights on a block that no longer sells new products

This is the section that matters most and it is the one almost nobody addresses.

Your term policy grants a right to convert to permanent coverage. That contractual obligation travels with the block; an acquirer takes the liabilities along with the assets. But the practical question is what permanent plan you can actually convert into when the administering company is running a closed block and is not marketing a current permanent product shelf. Carriers handle this in different ways — some maintain a designated conversion product specifically to satisfy these obligations, some arrange conversion into a legacy form, and the terms and pricing vary. We are not going to tell you which applies to your contract, because only your servicer can.

So ask, in writing, and ask precisely:

1. The calendar date my conversion right expires. A date, not a formula.
2. The specific permanent plan or plans available to me on conversion today, by product name and form number.
3. A converted premium quote at my attained age for that specific plan and my current face amount.
4. Whether partial conversion is permitted, and the minimum amount.
5. Confirmation that no new medical underwriting is required for conversion within the window.

The converted premium is not a detail. It is a direct input into what any institutional buyer would pay, because whoever owns the policy afterward funds that premium for the rest of the insured’s life. A conversion product priced well above a competitive retail permanent policy suppresses offers, and in some cases eliminates them. Our explainer on what a term conversion rider is covers the general structure, and if the deadline is close, see term conversion deadline approaching.

If the answer comes back that the window has closed, that is final. Carriers do not reopen expired conversion rights and no relationship in the industry recovers one.

What you hold	Who administers it	Sellable?	Deadline that matters
Individual Voya term policy	Resolution Life organization since January 2021	Only after conversion	Conversion date written in the contract
Group term certificate through an employer	Voya, largely via ReliaStar Life of Minnesota	No, not as a certificate	About 31 days after coverage ends
Ported group term on direct bill	Same group master policy	No	Ask whether conversion still survives
Return-of-premium endowment term	Resolution Life organization	Compare against holding to endowment	The endowment date itself
Venerable annuity contract	Venerable Insurance and Annuity, Iowa	No, it is not life insurance	Surrender charge schedule
Converted permanent policy, face $250K+, insured 70+	Resolution Life organization	Worth a review	None; order the in-force illustration

Voya’s term products, and the return-of-premium wrinkle

Voya’s individual term lineup was marketed under names including TermSmart and a return-of-premium endowment term. Product names and availability changed over the years, and your rights are governed by the form number on your policy rather than by the marketing name it carried at sale. Two policies issued three years apart under the same brand can have materially different conversion provisions if the form changed, so give the servicer the policy number and ask for the contract matching your specific form.

Return-of-premium term deserves its own paragraph, because it changes the decision for anyone who holds one. An ROP term policy refunds the premiums paid if the insured is alive at the end of the level period. That endowment is a real, contractual sum of money, and for an insured in reasonable health who is within a few years of the endowment date, simply holding the policy to term and collecting the refund frequently beats anything a settlement would produce — and beats surrendering, because early surrender values on ROP contracts follow a schedule that returns only a fraction of premiums paid until quite late in the term.

Three things to establish if you hold one: the endowment date, the exact amount scheduled to be returned on that date, and the current surrender value. If your servicer will state all three in writing, the comparison becomes arithmetic rather than argument. Our page on a return-of-premium term policy works through the trade-offs.

For standard level term with no ROP feature, there is nothing to hold for — the policy simply expires — and the conversion right is the only asset in the contract.

The cases where no market exists

Better to know before spending time and money. A term policy generally will not attract an institutional offer when any of these is true.

• The conversion right has expired. Final, no exceptions, and anyone claiming otherwise should end your interest in working with them.
• The face amount is below roughly $100,000. A buyer’s costs are largely fixed — independent life expectancy reports, legal review of the assignment and ownership documents, escrow administration, verification of coverage with the carrier, and decades of premium payment and tracking. At small face amounts they consume the entire economics.
• The insured is under about 65 and in reasonable health. Valuation follows projected life expectancy; a long one means decades of projected premium against a present value that cannot clear. Expect no offer rather than a low one.
• The converted premium is disproportionate to the face amount. This is a live risk on closed blocks where the available conversion product may not be priced competitively.
• An ROP endowment is close and the insured is healthy. Holding to the refund date is often the better economic outcome.
• The coverage is still needed. A surviving spouse with no pension continuation, a dependent with a disability, or a mortgage that outlives the insured are reasons to keep the coverage and address the premium another way.

The narrow exception in the other direction: where the insured is terminally or chronically ill and the projected claim date sits comfortably inside the remaining level period, a viatical settlement on a term policy can be possible. That turns on medical documentation and on enough level term remaining, not on the policy alone.

The order to work in, and what to send

Two of these steps cannot be undone, so sequence matters.

1. Confirm individual versus group, and identify the current servicer in writing.
2. Obtain the written conversion terms using the five-item list above, plus the ROP endowment figures if your policy has that feature.
3. Have the file reviewed while it is still term. This is the step people take last and should take third. A review tells you whether the resulting permanent policy would attract institutional interest before you commit to converting and start paying permanent premiums that typically run several times the term premium. Converting first and asking afterward is the most expensive available mistake here. Our page on converting term and then selling works through examples.
4. Convert only the portion you need, if partial conversion is available.
5. Market the converted policy through life expectancy underwriting, competitive bidding, closing, escrow, and the rescission window your own state provides.

For a free policy review, send the policy or certificate cover page — showing the insured’s name, policy number, form number, issue date, face amount, and level premium period — along with the most recent premium notice and the conversion provision if you can locate it. From those a reviewer can determine the ownership structure, the remaining level period, whether the conversion right appears open, the face amount at stake, and whether the size clears the market’s working minimum.

Withhold medical records, Social Security numbers, and bank information at this stage. Nobody needs them to tell you whether a policy is worth pursuing, and an early request for them is a reason to stop and ask why. There is no legitimate upfront fee for a policy evaluation. Pine Lake Life Solutions provides education and a free policy review; we do not provide legal, tax, or investment advice, and anything with tax or estate consequences belongs with your own CPA or attorney before you sign. The general framework for term is at selling a term life policy, and if you hold a permanent contract instead, see our page on a Voya indexed universal life policy. To reach a reviewer, call (305) 209-7183.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who administers my individual Voya term policy now?

Most likely an entity within the Resolution Life organization. Voya sold its individual life business, including Colorado-domiciled Security Life of Denver Insurance Company, to Resolution Life Group Holdings in a transaction that closed in January 2021. Ask your servicer to confirm in writing which entity administers the contract today, since Resolution Life’s own corporate ownership has continued to change since then.

Can I still convert if the company no longer sells permanent policies?

The conversion obligation travels with the block, so the right does not disappear when a business is sold. What varies is which permanent plan is actually available to satisfy it, and at what premium. Ask your servicer in writing for the specific plan name and form number available to you and a converted premium quote at your attained age, rather than assuming any particular product.

I have Voya life insurance through my job. Can I sell it?

Not as a certificate. Your employer or a trust owns the master policy, so there is nothing for you to transfer. Group life stayed with Voya’s employee benefits business rather than going to Resolution Life. What you may have is a conversion right, usually about 31 days after coverage ends, which produces an individually owned permanent policy without new medical underwriting.

I have return-of-premium term. Should I sell it or hold it?

Get three numbers in writing before deciding: the endowment date, the exact amount scheduled to be refunded on that date, and today’s surrender value. For an insured in reasonable health within a few years of endowment, holding to term and collecting the refund frequently beats any settlement offer and clearly beats early surrender, since early surrender values return only a fraction of premiums paid.

Does a term policy with no cash value have any value to a buyer?

Cash value is not what buyers pay for; they pay for a death benefit that will eventually be claimed. A term policy with no cash value can still hold real value when the conversion right is open and the insured’s health has declined since issue. A term policy with neither cash value nor a live conversion right has essentially no market value.

What is the difference between porting and converting my group coverage?

Portability continues group term coverage on direct bill after employment ends, but the master policy still belongs to the group, so you still own nothing transferable, and ported coverage usually terminates at a stated age. Conversion exchanges the group coverage for an individual permanent policy in your name. Some plans end the conversion right once portability is elected, so confirm your plan’s rule in writing first.

Related Reading

• Sell Term Life Policy
• What Is A Term Conversion Rider
• Term Conversion Deadline Approaching
• Convert Term Then Sell
• Can I Sell A Group Life Insurance Policy
• Carrier Merged Who Owns Policy
• Return Of Premium Term Policy
• Sell My Voya Indexed Universal Policy

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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.