Stranger originated life insurance, also known as Stoli, is a phenomenon that has come in for considerable criticism in America, and concerns that it might spread to the UK have prompted the City Watchdog to investigate.
Stoli refers to a trend in America where senior citizens have their life insurance policies sold to hedge funds or other investors, who then speculate on their deaths. The Financial Services Authority conducted an inquiry into the possibility of this happening in the UK, and found that the practice has not yet spread. However, they did not say that it would be illegal.
A spokesperson for the FSA was reported in the life insurance news as commenting: "Our conclusion was that it would not be illegal in the UK as such, though it is certainly not in keeping with the traditional basis of life insurance, where the beneficiary is normally a close relative of the insured party. There was some evidence in the US never proven that some people might have been incentivised to hurry up the demise of insured parties in order to get payouts. Of course, that can happen with traditional life insurance ."




