Winston Churchill once said, “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. This iniquity is well exemplified by the power held by insurance companies in repurchasing insurance policies. If an insurance policy is either unwanted or unneeded, the policyholder's only recourse to recover the asset's value, until the development of the life settlement industry, was to settle for the policy's cash surrender value, as determined by the insurance company, or let the policy lapse, in effect selling the policy for zero dollars. Considering that the amount of in-force life insurance in the United States stands at approximately 15 trillion dollars, an amount equal to the capitalization of the New York Stock Exchange and nearly double the GDP of the United States, the monopsony (i.e., a market where goods are offered by multiple sellers but there is only one buyer) power held by the incumbent life insurance companies in purchasing policies has resulted in a considerable ‘unequal sharing of blessings.'