Wall Street has ways to profit from waiting for people to die... The increasingly popular practice of buying rights to older people's life insurance are called "life settlements"... These arrangements allow senior citizens to sell their policies at a discount to face value. As a buyer, you claim the benefits when the seller dies. In the meantime, you pay the policy premiums. Investment earnings hinge on how long the insured person lives. The ghoulish facts of such investing: The sooner the original policyholder dies, the better for the investor.