Betty White Promotes Life Settlements for Funding Retirement

Comedienne Betty White is helping pitch life settlements as a way for Baby Boomers to help fund their retirement.

The 90-year-old actress, who is currently starring in the TV Land series “Hot in Cleveland,” has begun appearing in videos for a company called the Lifeline Program that encourages Boomers to consider selling an unneeded life insurance policy for a portion of the face amount. So-called life settlements have attracted some controversy, but have also become more mainstream in recent years, the company argues.

White is appearing in video promotions for the company, including a rap music video entitled “I’m Still Hot” that has already attracted nearly 1 million views on YouTube.

“The guys and gals at Lifeline are hot and they keep retirement hot by making life settlements that really make life better,” she said in one promotional video.

The company noted that in a survey conducted by International Communications Research, 79 percent of respondents felt that financial planners and insurance professionals should be informing their clients about life settlements as a way to fund their retirement, as opposed to letting the policy simply lapse.  Fifty-five percent of the survey respondents expressed concern they will have to continue working past the age of 65.

White, who starred on classic TV series like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Golden Girls” shows no sign of slowing down or retiring, though. She recently was saluted with a 90th birthday celebration on prime time TV on NBC, received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a TV Comedy Series for “Hot in Cleveland,” and began hosting a new reality TV series for NBC called “Off Their Rockers” in which a group of senior citizens play pranks on younger people.

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