This week I was contacted by the father of a young man,
let’s call the young man Joe who is age 20.
Joe had suffered a traumatic brain injury as the result of an auto
accident and had received a settlement of $50,000. Joe’s father was concerned because Joe had
already blown through half his settlement in a month due to his discovery of
cocaine, which some new “friends” he was spending a lot of time with introduced
him to.
Joe’s father had heard of something called a Structured
Settlement, which he thought may help preserve the remainder of Joe’s
settlement from being squandered. Structured
Settlements are a financial vehicle which have been around since the 1980’s that
facilitate receiving a legal settlement with interest income tax free over time
and can sometimes have benefits over receiving the settlement all at once in a
lump sum, as in this case.
Joe’s father contacted me because my firm, White House
Settlement Consulting that I founded in 2001, has been helping injury victims
achieve their goals using Structured Settlements for almost 20 years. I had to unfortunately inform him that due to
the laws governing Structured Settlements, once the funds have been received by
the claimant it was too late to set one up after the fact and his only option
to gain some control over what was left of Joe’s settlement was to become Joe’s
conservator through the courts, which was unfortunately a potentially long and
expensive process.
I asked Joe’s father if Structured Settlements were
considered during the settlement process, and he said that he thought they
were, however, they were not correctly explained to Joe, who thought that they
were bad because only someone representing the defendant auto insurer, who he was
suing, tried to explain them to him. Joe’s
attorney also told him that because “interest rates are too low”, and his
settlement was on the “small side” he’d be better suited taking his entire
settlement as a lump sum! I ask you which is better: a higher interest rate
on ZERO or a lower interest rate on SOMETHING?
In addition, we have done hundreds of Structured Settlements for as
little as $5,000 to $10,000 as long as it makes sense for the client.
Unfortunately, after doing this for almost 20 years this is
not the first time that I have heard this sad story! This is why if you are an attorney representing
injured clients, an injured client, or know someone who has been injured PLEASE
obtain your OWN Structured Settlement consultant who represents YOU and the
CLIENT’S interests and can explain the advantage and disadvantages of a
Structured Settlements AT NO COST TO THE CLAIMANT OR THEIR ATTORNEY! We are trained to properly explain not only Structured
Settlements but all financial instruments to clients and to design financial
plans that will help them achieve their goals.
Also, if you are the parent of an injury victim it gives you more
control over the distribution of the settlement than a lump sum.
Lastly, please make sure that all the financial options for
the settlement are explored PRIOR TO SETTLEMENT so that options like the Structured
Settlement are still available! If the
client still chooses a lump sum, at least you have done your due diligence and
presented them with all their options using a qualified representative that
represents their interests and not the insurance company’s.
www.whitehousellc.com
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