Disability Law

Structured Settlement Credo - 3

By Patrick Hindert

S2KM's continuing summary and commentary about the credo of the traditional structured settlement industry.

Good People and Bad People - We (the traditional structured settlement industry) believe the structured settlement world consists of Good People and Bad People.

Good People

• We are the Good People - the men and women of the traditional structured settlement industry.
• We are the professionals who understand, produce, sell and service structured settlement annuities.
• How do we know we are the Good People?
• Because many important people say we are the Good People:
  • U.S. Congressmen, plaintiff attorneys and injury victims regularly, historically and continually travel to our meetings to tell us we are the Good People.
  • To summarize: we "protect the needy from the greedy".
• People who endorse our credo are also Good People.
• Based upon our own survey, plaintiff attorneys strongly "support" structured settlements - although substantially fewer plaintiff attorneys recommend us to their injury victim clients as financial advisers.
• People who don't endorse our credo are either:
  • Bad People; or
  • Misinformed People; or
  • Misquided People.
• Injury victims and their attorneys may or may not be Good People - depending upon whether they support our structured settlement credo based upon their structured settlement decisions.

Original Sin

• The concept of "original sin" is fundamental to structured settlement credo.
• We believe injury victims are inherently unreliable people - Bad People.
• Why? Because, without us (the Good People), injury victims "squander" their personal injury settlements.
• Even our strongest critics (Bad People) agree with this fundamental (Good People) structured settlement credo.
• Example: Richard Halpern - no friend of structured settlement annuities.
• Halpren, based upon his public statements, supports and promotes fundamental structured settlement credo.
• Halpern addresses structured settlement credo in his December 2008 article for the North Carolin Lawyers Weekly titled "Protecting Plaintiffs from the Squandered Settlement".
• Halpern writes: "90 percent of plaintiffs will squander their financial recovery within five years of settlement".
• Halpern also announces in his North Carolina Lawyers Weekly article that he has located the structured settlement dissipation study that confirms our industry credo (90% dissipation within 5 years) - The Rutter Group Ltd.

Full post as published by Beyond Structured Settlements on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).