Viatical settlements are a growing facet of the insurance industry that started with the rise of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s. Although most people have never even heard the word “viatical,” a recent study reported by a leading insurance company concluded that the industry will soon exceed $10 billion. Basically, it’s a way for someone diagnosed with a terminally ill disease to get the money they need to fight their disease, or simply to live comfortably in the time they have left. The patient signs his life insurance benefits over to a group of investors. In exchange, the investors pay an immediate, lump-sum cash settlement to the patient, usually about half the value of the policy. So, with a policy of one million dollars, the patient gets a quick half million dollars while he’s still alive, to do with as he wishes. The investors collect the full death benefit when the patient dies, doubling their money. It’s a little ghoulish, since the investor is betting (indeed, hoping) that the patient will die soon and provide a quick return on the investment.

As a writer, this concept immediately intrigued me – the very idea of a total stranger having a serious financial interest in your early death. I was even more interested when I came across the findings of a Florida grand jury, which concluded that “fraud in the viatical-settlement industry is rampant” and that as many as 40% to 50% of the settlements were tainted with fraud. As I dug deeper, I discovered a Texas case in which the accused ring-leader of an alleged $10 million viatical settlement scheme happened to be on parole from a murder-for-hire conviction. Although no one was found to have been murdered as a way of expediting the pay-off to investors, it got me to wondering… what if?