Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of or relating to traveling, a road, or a way.
  • adjective Of or relating to a contractual arrangement in which a business buys life insurance policies from terminally ill patients for a percentage of the face value.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to a journey; viatic
  • adjective Describing the purchase of an insurance policy from a holder who is terminally ill

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective pertaining to the purchase of insurance policies from terminally ill policy holders

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin viāticus, relating to a journey, from via, road; see via. Sense 2, from viaticum.]

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Examples

  • A life settlement sometimes called a "viatical settlement" or even "senior settlement" originates when a life insurance policyholder, often an elderly or terminally ill person, sells his or her interest in the policy to a third party, usually at a level that's well below the policy's stated death benefit.

    unknown title 2011

  • This type of transaction is called a viatical life settlement.

    Guerrilla Marketing 2009

  • Enter Jesse Bogdonoff, an American employee at the bank who convinced the king to invest the money in a pool of insurance backed investments called viatical contracts, managed by Millennium Asset Management.

    Gothamist 2008

  • If you Google the words "viatical" and "scam" or "viatical" and "fraud," you'll eventually come upon stories about Florida Democrat Bill Nelson, who found himself embroiled in the middle of a viatical settlement scandal (read this, for example).

    terryfrank.net 2009

  • I thought they were already doint this with viatical settlements?

    What could go wrong? (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • As the residents aged, as the Hillside Home began to market itself to a sicker population, Gary used the band's appearances to evaluate acquisitions for his brother's viatical funds.

    Chameleon Andrew Clarke 2011

  • As he looks into the circumstances surrounding the death, he learns about viatical settlements.

    Who’s Thrilling You Now? –The New Guns of the Thriller Genre; an Author Panel 2009

  • It is, if you invest in a life insurance product called a viatical.

    Who’s Thrilling You Now? –The New Guns of the Thriller Genre; an Author Panel 2009

  • Investor funds collected by American Benefits were forwarded to another viatical (death futures) settlement company, Financial Federated Title & Trust, which spent only $6 million to buy interests in actual life insurance policies.

    The Coming Death Bubble 2009

  • Patients needed money for treatment and viatical settlements provided the perfect vehicle for that.

    A Killer Idea 2007

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