Are Life Settlement Securities the next toxic asset? Less than one year after the credit crisis, firms such as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan are creating life settlement securities which are made by repackaging thousands of life insurance policies into tradable securities. Policyholders get money upfront at a fraction of the policy’s value and investors are paid the full value of the policy when the policyholder eventually dies. A no brainer for investors, right? However, DBRS, a credit ratings agency, says that no life settlement security has met its standards for “safety and security” to date. And critics say these products are just like the exotic investments that triggered the financial meltdown. Wall Street claims the products are safe, because they could be structured in a way that not many people of the same age or with the same illnesses would be included in the same security. Now where have we heard that before?