Structured Settlement Consultant

I will assume if you clicked on this page you have a structured settlement and researching on selling it. You may have seen an ad, or a friend told you about selling your payments now you wanted to know is it true? Yes! It is.

If you are receiving a settlement over time and are in need of a lump-sum payment that is possible. That is what is referred to as selling your annuity in the secondary market. Most of the time you agreed to take a larger settlement over time, but what you may or may not know is that the original cash offer or a portion of it was used to purchased annuity that you are receiving in payments. These payment streams have a present day discounted value in the secondary market. The IRS has come up with a number that it feels a dollar today is worth in say 10 years, and vice a versa. That number is then used to calculate what your payments are worth. This allows the purchaser to cover their costs in making the transfer happen.

What does that mean to you? Well, it means your payments that are due to further out say 10 years are worth less, today. The payment stream when setup was set up with a probable rate of 2 % return, and now your payment is being purchased at a minimum of 10 % return. Each transfer is unique so do quote exact numbers is impossible, but what you can expect to be to lose a large portion of the “face” value of your payments.

Each sale of a structured settlement has to be underwritten & approved by a court. The underwriter is responsible for making sure that the payments can be sold and transferred without liens or liabilities. The court is responsible to ensure the seller has the right to sell the payments, and that it is in the best interest of the person receiving the payments to sell.

So to decide you want to sell your payments to throw a huge blowout bash for the fourth of July, is probably not going to be approved by the court. They need to make sure you have a means of support and ability to pay for medical care if there is any from the original settlement incident. So having a plan of action for the money, is probably a good idea. Furthermore, owing back taxes or child support should be considered.

Last thing you should think about is every company and person buying structured settlements has a different cost of money. All that means is different companies can give you a better rate of exchange for your payments, and just like buying a car and financing it, you should check a couple of companies to ensure you get the best price for your payments.