Litigation

Spencer v Hartford Preliminary Settlement Approved: "What Each Class Member Will Get"

Posted on June 08, 2010
United States District Judge Janet C. Hall approved a $72.5 million preliminary settlement of the Spencer v Hartford structured settlement class action lawsuit on June 7, 2010. The settlement impacts thousands of annuitants who received structured settlements as part of...

Bentzen Funding Solutions: CT Woman "Press" Impetus For State Registration?

Posted on June 06, 2010
It is our position that factoring companies and "cash now pushers" should be licensed and follow state business and corporate formalities just like the rest of us. We broke the story about "The CT Woman" debacle involving Bentzen Funding Solutions...

Ohio Personal Injury Settlement: Capital Gains Tax For Car Accident?

Posted on June 05, 2010
Someone using the Bing Search engine has a question concerning the taxation of personal injury settlements "I'm getting a settlement for a car accident what would the Capital Gains Tax in Ohio be?" Comments: The amounts you receive as compenstaion...

Exploring The In Force Structured Annuity Market-6: Deals Being Advertised

Posted on June 05, 2010
The following is a link to a list of available deals to purchase structured settlement payment rights by individuals from one particular source. On the list you will see the forms of cash flow on this "used annuity lot" that...

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SSP Cluckers or Gobblers? Update

Posted on June 04, 2010
A month has now passed since the close of the SSP annual meeting and neither the Society of Settlement Planners, nor eccentric pedant "Hedwig Pindork" have acknowledged that the SSP has a factoring intermediary on its Board of Directors. Follow...

Smith Bucklin Management: Time for NSSTA Leadership to Show Some Resolve!

Posted on June 03, 2010
The end of the tenure of Smith Bucklin as the association management company for the National Structured Settlement Trade Association is nigh and it couldn't come soon enough, in the opinion of this author. Smith Bucklin's "reign" began in late...

Structured Settlement "COLA": Don't Drink the "COLA-Aid"!

Posted on June 03, 2010
What some structured settlement consultants and others refer to as a cost of living adjustment or COLA today is really a fixed escalator such as 2%, 3%, 4% or more. I'd like you to have a better understanding of it....

In Force Structured Annuity Market-6 Direct Transfer; Assignment of Warehoused Payments; What About the Annuitant?

Posted on June 02, 2010
There are several types of transactions for individual investors (including tort victims): Acting as the direct counterparty to a structured settlement factoring transaction. You invest money in the right to receive periodic payments from someone else's structured settlement directly or...

Structured Settlements Can Make a "Win-Win For Both Sides" New York Plaintiff Lawyer

Posted on May 31, 2010
Despite the over the top scaremongering used by certain settlement planners to get business a leading New York plaintiff lawyer suggests that structured settlements may be a "win win" that enables an otherwise impossible settlement" In Protecting the Catastrophically injured...

Slow As Structured Mol-Asset Funding, LLC

Posted on May 31, 2010
"Oh Wherefore art thou?" sayeth Romeo. Act 2 Scene 2 from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet you say? Hardly! Dripping in irony, instead of star crossed lovers we have a star crossed "blubber" The opening scene sees the plaintiff bleating in...

Structured Settlement Website Rankings (By Traffic) June 2010 Survey

Posted on May 31, 2010
Rich Text Area. Which legitimate structured settlement industry websites are getting the most Internet traffic? Three Month Trailing Top 10 Global Traffic Rank (Alexa Rank as of 05/31/2010) of Structured Settlement and Settlement Planning Industry websites* (+ or- traffic from...

Florida Supplier of Inforce Structured Annuities Says Demand is 5 Times Supply!

Posted on May 30, 2010
In a financial radio show broadcast in late 2009 a Florida financial adviser, who claims to be the largest supplier of purchased structured annuities, said that demand for structured settlement payment rights by yield hungry individual investors is such that...

Woodbridge Investments Structured Funding: The Predatory Factoring Company?

Posted on May 29, 2010
On September 18, 2008 Woodbridge Investments opportunistically and prematurely danced on the graves of "major insurance giants like AIG" in a Press Release which stated: "Recent financial troubles and bankruptcy scare for insurance giant AIG has created opportunity for structured...

Factoring: Settlement Planners Code of Conduct Needs Review in Light Of SSP Board Member

Posted on May 28, 2010
To its credit, The Society of Settlement Planners created a Standards of Conduct for Settlement Planners in 2008. The society took a bold step in including a standard for factoring of structured settlemens. The rule deserves a re examination given...

Stuctured Attorney Fees Could Help New York Attorneys Mitigate Effect of "Millionaire Tax"

Posted on May 27, 2010
Fox news reports that a new proposed "millionaire tax under consideration in New York "would jack up a current millionaires tax another 11-percent" as a means to close the 9.2 billion dollar New York state deficit This is on top...

Structured Settlement Factoring Referrals: The Risks of No Competitve Bidding and Single Source Referrals

Posted on May 27, 2010
This author has now learned that there WAS a structured settlement broker who referred the structured settlement factoring deal to Bentzen Funding Solutions whose offer to a New York annuitant was bettered by 50% by another factoring company. We're not...

Structured Attorney Fees Could Help New York Attorneys Mitigate Effect of "Millionaire Tax"

Posted on May 27, 2010
Fox news reports that a new proposed "millionaire tax under consideration in New York "would jack up a current millionaires tax another 11-percent" as a means to close the 9.2 billion dollar New York state deficit This is on top...

Exploring The 'In Force" Structured Settlement Market -4 (VIDEO)

Posted on May 27, 2010
In this video structured settlement expert and Registered Settlement Planner John Darer continues to explore the market for "in force" structured settlement payments rights and other cash flows that has recently become available and grabbing the attention of individual investors,...

"If You Don't Use Clearscape Your Lump Sum Will Be Taxable"

Posted on May 26, 2010
Our source tells us that an annuitant was in the process of factoring part of a Symetra Life annuity with Factoring company X when a representative of Symetra's factoring subsidiary Clearscape Funding materialized. Purportedly the annuitant was told that if...

Society of Settlement Planners: Cluckers or Gobblers on Transparency?

Posted on May 26, 2010
It has been over 3 weeks since the conclusion of the Society of Settlement Planners annual meeting. Despite its cry for transparency, is it a contradiction in terms in that the SSP has made no public mention about its naming...

Bentzen Funding Beaten in Structured Settlement Factoring Bid BY 50%!!!!

Posted on May 26, 2010
One of our sources tells us that it has recently offered a New York structured settlement annuitant 50% more cash than Bentzen Funding Solutions to an annuitant who wanted to sell their structured settlement payment rights. There is reason to...

Systemic Risk Among Insurers: Georgia Professor Questions Need For Federal Regulation

Posted on May 24, 2010
While some policy analysts have suggested that the presence of systemic among insurers necessitates changing the governmental level at which all insurers are regulated, a brief by a Georgia State law and risk management professor for a group of industry...

Spencer v Hartford-9 How To Shoot Yourself in The Foot in One Easy Lesson

Posted on May 23, 2010
Like a dog owner who believes that rubbing a dog's nose in its own poo is a "learning exercise", or who allows their kid to sit in their soiled nappies as punishment, TSSG's Patrick HIndert continues to demonstrate his "fine...

Florida Issues Warning to Insurance Agents on Payoffs To Unlicensed Persons

Posted on May 22, 2010
The State of Florida sees the paying of production based referral fees to unlicensed persons or entities as a major problem . Florida has issued a warning to all licensed agents through its Pulse newsletter" "Paying for Referrals Agents, agencies,...

Exploring In Force Structured Settlements-3: Used Annuity Lots

Posted on May 21, 2010
Is there a life insurance company owned "used annuity" lot in your future? Go ahead have a good laugh. Then put your thinking cap on! If annuity issuers could buy back payment rights in exchange for liquidity, would it not...

Spencer v Hartford Begats "468B Risk Management" Panacea for Defendants from Plaintiff Advisors?

Posted on May 21, 2010
He who made a gross miscalculation of the amount of damages (as a scare tactic) in Spencer v Hartford and "made" associate law professor Adam Scales "a household name", is now so emboldened by the proposed settlement to suggest that...

Suitability In Annuity Transactions Model Regulation

Posted on May 20, 2010
Recent revisions to the Suitability In Annuity Transactions Model Regulation, approved in late March 2010 by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, will ring in changes for agents and brokers who sell fixed annuities (in states that adopt the model...

Can A Judge Tell You That You Can't Cash In Your Settlement Payments?

Posted on May 20, 2010
The above question was posed in a search this morning on the Bing search engine. It is an excellent question. Under the structured settlement protection acts that are in place in all but a few states, a judge must approve...

Financial See Saw Continues For Some

Posted on May 20, 2010
Stocks Are Down 2.5% today (at time of writing) in another sharp sell off Bank Take Overs in 2010 (FDIC, CNBC) 72 Banks on Troubled List Now (FDIC, CNBC) 775 Banks on Troubled List August 26, 2008 (CNBC) 117 More...

Exploring tn Force Structured Settlement Market-2 "Out Of The Box" Settlement Planning Solutions

Posted on May 19, 2010
Thinking outside of the box,,,the reality is that at this point in time interest rates make a very short duration structured annuity an unattractive option. Back in the day a structure over the next 4 years meant you might have...

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