Litigation

The Hartford's Unintended Legacy to Inattentive Structured Settlements Consultants

By John Darer

There are a number of structured settlement consulting firms and settlements groups who continue to use outdated marketing materials originally prepared by The Hartford in 1999 on their websites.  The Hartford exited structured settlement underwriting almost a year ago.  Yet settlement consultants too busy or lazy to pay attention to what they put out on their websites maintain (for example) that the FDIC only insure CD deposits up to $100,000.

Those who stay on top of what has been going on in the financial world in the last few years know that the FDIC limits were increased to $250,000 during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

The same outdated marketing piece also states that structured settlements are TAX-FREE without delineating income tax free or estate tax free.  Structured settlement payments are not estate tax free. Secondary market structured settlement payments are not income tax free. Someone should be paying more attention to what is happening in Washington with respect to the estate tax. Structured settlement consultants who fail to qualify the tax treatment with the word "income" in their advertising, including websites, are misrepresenting the true facts and simply indicating that they are not on top of their game.

Those who continue to use material prepared by The Hartford 11 Years ago are doing a disservice to the structured settlement industry. Structured settlement brokers should be promoting literacy not illiteracy, in my opinion.

Full post as published by Structured Settlements 4Real on July 18, 2010 (boomark / email).