Biography
Wm. Scott Page
The founder of the life settlement industry — and, for more than three decades, one of its most trusted voices for the families, advisors, and counsel who navigate it.
The founder of the life settlement industry — and, for more than three decades, one of its most trusted voices for the families, advisors, and counsel who navigate it.
Scott Page didn’t set out to build an industry. He set out to help a dying friend — selling a life insurance policy to cover the cost of care. That single act opened a question the financial world had never seriously asked: what is a life insurance policy actually worth to the person who owns it, while they are still alive to need it?
His path to that question began in the U.S. Air Force. In the Environmental Medicine Division at Myrtle Beach, Scott helped develop care protocols for service members during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic — work that fixed his attention, early and permanently, on the financial dignity of people running out of time.
In 1989 he founded The Lifeline Program, the first major life settlement provider in the United States, and led it as President and CEO for nearly thirty years. Under his direction it grew from an idea into the foundation of a multi-billion-dollar market — and, just as deliberately, into a model for how that market should behave. Scott introduced the transparency standards, anti-fraud procedures, and anti-money-laundering safeguards the industry still runs on.
What began as one act of compassion became a nationally regulated industry — and a standard for how that industry should treat the people it serves.
He wrote much of the rulebook himself. As President of the National Viatical Association and a founding board member of NAVSO, Scott authored the first working draft of the NAIC Model Act — now the legal framework for life settlement regulation in nearly every state. He has testified before the SEC, the FBI, the Department of Insurance, and state legislatures, and chaired the ethics and education committees that set the industry’s professional standards.
Today Scott serves as CEO of PolicyAppraisal.com, delivering fast, realistic, data-driven valuations to the attorneys, advisors, consumers, and institutions who need to understand what a policy is truly worth. Through ScottPage.com he provides litigation strategy, expert-witness testimony, and policy appraisals to legal and financial teams — and his newest venture, LifeExpectancyCalculator.com, brings that same rigor to individuals planning for the years ahead.
He has also spent a career bringing a once-taboo subject into the mainstream. Scott has appeared on FOX Business, 20/20, NBC Nightly News, Phil Donahue, and Varney & Co., and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Newsweek, and The New York Times. He spent more than a decade alongside Betty White educating millions through national campaigns. He is the author of It’s Never Too Late, and the central subject of the New Yorker documentary Cashing Out, shortlisted for the 2026 Academy Awards.
Now based between Atlanta and South Florida, Scott remains what he has always been: an advocate. His work, in every form it takes, returns to a single conviction — that no one should leave money, or dignity, on the table simply because no one told them what they had.
Scott didn’t only open a market. He built the systems that made it safe to operate in — and brought in the institutions to enforce them.
Partnered with Holland & Knight to build the first international AML and source-of-funds program in life settlements — adopted by Kaufman Rossin and Northern Trust Bank to screen hundreds of millions of dollars entering the U.S. economy.
Screening built to detect and stop funds tied to Black Market Peso Exchange schemes and other cross-border financial crimes — safeguards that later became industry standard.
Worked alongside Holland & Knight to brief the Securities and Exchange Commission on life settlement transactions and portfolio structures.
Developed training for Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel to identify fraudulent life settlement transactions.
Created the first continuing-education program for oncology nurses — equipping them to recognize and ease the financial toxicity their patients face.
Trained state insurance regulators to detect falsified consumer disclosures on life insurance applications — the practice known as “clean sheeting.”
Built continuing-education curricula for insurance professionals across the industry.
Commissioned independent research and polling among wealth managers and family offices to correct public misconceptions and establish life settlements as a legitimate planning tool.
For litigation strategy, expert-witness testimony, or a policy appraisal, the conversation starts here.
Request a Consultation