Tontine

From French tontine, named after Lorenzo de Tonti, who introduced the scheme into France in around 1653.

Full definition of tontine

(plural tontines)

(finance, insurance) A form of investment in which, on the death of an investor, his share is divided amongst the other investors.

1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, p. 634:there were many speculative schemes which gambled on the expectation of an individual's life, as in the tontine system, whereby all the group's contributions went to the last survivor.
2000, JG Ballard, Super-Cannes, Fourth Estate 2011, p. 237:They were pleasantly high, but in an almost self-conscious way, as if they were members of a tontine blessed by the unexpected death of two or three of its members.