How the AIDS crisis helped create a multibillion-dollar death-speculation market
This article explores the emergence of a financial market where investors speculate on the life expectancy of individuals with life insurance policies. It follows the story of a cancer survivor who discovered this industry after managing his own health crisis.
Why it matters
It highlights the ethical and financial implications of 'death-speculation' markets, where human mortality is treated as a tradable asset class.
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Listeners of our August 14 Planet Money episode may recognize some of today's newsletter. We got such a response, and so many questions, we wanted to go a little deeper with this follow up.
Frank Sierawski didn't set out to discover a multibillion-dollar market for speculating on when people with life insurance policies will die. He stumbled on it by accident, after getting the worst news of his life.
Over a decade ago, Sierawski got diagnosed with a rare form of Stage IV lung cancer.
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