FTA: Often, the ill and elderly need cash for assisted living or myriad other reasons, and a small network of insurance brokers exists to offer them a sizeable pile of money in exchange for being named the beneficiary of the policy. A broker might pay $400,000 for a million-dollar policy.

Corporate shenanigans with life insurance schemes have already been in play fer a while.

COLI.

Corporate Owned Life Insurance.

AKA: Janitor Insurance.

AKA: Peasant Insutrance.

Corporate-owned life insurance (COLI) is life insurance on employees' lives that is owned by the employer corporation, with benefits payable to the corporation. COLI was originally purchased on the lives of key employees and executives by a company to hedge against the financial cost of losing key employees to unexpected death, the risk of recruiting and training replacements of necessary or highly-trained personnel, or to fund corporate obligations to redeem stock upon the death of an owner. This use is commonly known as "key man" or "key person" insurance. Although this article refers only to practice and policy in America, key person insurance is used worldwide. Once, COLI was used for masses of non-key employees in order to get tax benefits, a practice known as "janitor insurance" or "dead peasant insurance".

Congress and the IRS set some guidelines and limits on this practice. Today, COLI is most common for senior executives of a firm, but it's use for general employees is still practiced. Recouping the cost of losing an employee versus actually profiting from their death at a level higher than their earning potential in particular raises questions. Estimating the value of an employee to a company is difficult. Recent questions have been raised in Michael Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story.