If filmmaker Matt Nadel is being honest, when he first set out to make a film about the viatical settlement industry, he had planned for it to be a “dad-bashing doc,” he says with a tentative laugh.

In 2020, he had discovered that his father Phil had once bought into the industry which, during the early 1990s at the peak of the AIDS crisis, profited by purchasing the life insurance policies of people with the illness in exchange for a portion of the payout up front.

Life insurance policies had been deemed purchasable assets since a 1911 Supreme Court case ruled them so, but it wasn’t until the AIDS epidemic – when cash-strapped gay men were facing terminal illness – that they became popularised. 

Essentially, investors were betting on death: how likely would the person be to die soon, and how much would investors have to offer upfront relative to how much they would gain when the victim passed?

For the AIDS patients themselves, considering they were devoid of governmental support, selling their policies allowed them to live out their remaining days as they wished. 

Nadel describes the industry as “a very American paradox… the paradox of capitalism,” whereby some were afforded comfort and security at their darkest moments, while “other people [could] be priced out of their own lives or their own dignity”.

At first, Nadel viewed the way the viatical settlement industry infiltrated the lives of those with AIDS as straight up exploitation. “Frankly, when my dad told me about this, my first response was like, ‘Well, that is disgusting. That is horrible,’” he says. Money taken from the life insurance policies of AIDS victims had funded his education, his holidays, his childhood happiness. “I really felt a sense of like, I need to know what’s going on here. This is my financial inheritance, but it’s also my moral inheritance.”

As a queer filmmaker with a drive to spotlight LGBTQ+ history, the fact that Nadel had a personal connection to this facet of the AIDS crisis made his next move obvious: create a documentary exploring – or exposing – it.

Given the industry’s “ghoulish tinge,” he was tempted to make a one-sided opposition film – his “dad-bashing doc” – tapping into what he assumed would be the “public’s disgust” at the way the business operated.

Yet, as he delved into archival records, old newspaper articles and found and spoke to those who both bought and sold policies at the time, “it became clear to me that the picture was genuinely complicated,” he says, “and could not be reduced to an assessment of good or bad”.

The result is Cashing Out, a 40-minute, Oscar-qualifying documentary in which Nadel speaks with four people who were touched by the morally ambiguous practice in one way or another.

There’s Scott Page, who brokered the sale of his partner Greg’s life insurance policy as Greg was dying of AIDS; with it, they purchased a house, a dog, paid for medication, and lived out Greg’s final years as peacefully as possible. Sean O. Strub, who sold his life insurance policy and used the money to found POZ, a magazine – that still exists today – which helped to accurately tell the stories of those affected by the epidemic, during an age of misinformation and hysteria.

And DeeDee Chamblee, a Black trans woman and founder of non-profit LaGender Inc., whose circumstances at the time – she did not have official employment nor life insurance – meant that she had no policy to sell, and thus no financial freedom to help her through her diagnosis.

Nadel recalls something Chamblee says during Cashing Out: “What an arbitrary determinant of whether you should have such critical care and peace in your final days.” Nadel’s dad Phil also appears, offering his perspective on why such deals felt beneficial for the community at the time.

Each participant’s experience expanded Nadal’s perception on the morality of viatical settlements. “There are people who really felt the benefit of this industry,” he says. “People were saying like, ‘How dare you morally judge us? You want me to die poor? This is my option.’” He discovered Page through his appearance on an old episode of The Phil Donahue Show, and learnt that he – a gay man – was running one of the settlement firms.

“The way it had been talked about was like, ‘Oh this is this vultureish thing, and these outside investors [are] praying on the community.’ But here was somebody from inside the community trying to make this happen.’” Page told him that the selling and purchasing of life insurance policies enabled the community to look after each other in their hours of need. 

Strub, also an executive for HIV advocacy group Sero Project, opened Nadal’s eyes to “the role of capital in a community’s flourishing,” while Chamblee made him confront the fact that those without capital were left floundering. “‘Look,’” she told him, “‘I get that you all were surprised that the government didn’t care about you, but I was never surprised that the government didn’t care about me. And I was never surprised that the capitalist innovation to fill the void of government support didn’t include me.’”

Following the introduction of protease inhibitors in the late ’90s, the disease no longer meant a death sentence, and the guaranteed return on such life insurance policies waned (to this day, some investors are still paying premiums, waiting for their policy sellers to die). Still, Nadel believes Cashing Out is as relevant today, as it’s about “how the United States, which is the richest country in the world, treats people who are chronically or terminally ill” – particularly queer people.

“Healthcare is a queer issue. Housing is a queer issue. The social safety net is a queer issue. Because when HIV or a crisis like it rolls into town, the bias and discrimination that exists in all facets of our society, those things can mean the difference between life or death for us,” he says. And when the government fails in its public health measures or allows its discrimination to restrict the community’s basic needs, “the profit-driven forces will creep in. And if they don’t see your life as financially valuable, they will not serve you”.

Nadel learnt about queer history through film, and hopes younger audiences can do the same via Cashing Out. Fellow Travelers star Matt Bomer and RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Angeria Paris VanMichaels have come on board as executive producers – after some cold emailing from Nadel – and have been “critical” in getting the documentary seen. “I’m a fan of both of them and just thought through my parasocial relationships that the film would be something they would connect with,” he laughs. Thankfully, they did. “They’ve modeled what it looks like to use your platform. It doesn’t doesn’t cost you anything.”

No one taught Nadel about the AIDS crisis when he was a closeted kid growing up in a Florida public high school, and there’s now a concerted effort by Republican powers that be to ensure LGBTQ+ history remains in the shadows. If Nadel can help it, that won’t happen. “I think every generation of queer people has a responsibility to find a new way to tell the story of the epidemic,” he says. “And this was my attempt.”

Cashing Out is available to watch on YouTube.

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