Knowledge-at-work

The S2 industry - circles with more than 360 degrees?

Structured settlements is an interesting vertical industry to explore the influence of legal changes, the role of the Internet and just how public policy issues come into play.

To transfer or not to transfer

Adam Scales has written a key paper in this area and questions one of the underlying tenets of NSSTA members selling annuities- that structured settlement recipients cannot look after their money and need to be protected from wealth dissipation. He points to a lack of evidence for this view and says that a few cases do not constitute a pattern nor a trend.

John Darer takes the opposite view and repeatedly calls upon factoring (transfer) companies to do away with misleading advertisements in his blog.

A settlement life-cycle

Scales points to an interesting quirk of legal wrangling. A traditional lump-sum settlement may be turned into a tax free structured settlement, which can then (subject to State Structured Settlement Protection Acts) be converted into a tax free lump sum payment. Along the way Insurance defendants may require that only registered brokers can handle the deal, assign payment responsibilities to a third party and remove liabilities from their balance sheets, factoring companies can then entice recipients, offer deep discounts, bundle their purchased AAA rated securities and resell these asset securitization packages for a profit.

Have been collecting S2 links on this S2-future wiki.

It all seems a little strange and unreal!!

Structured Settlements3.0 ?

On the web there is much excitement around the 2.0 meme - a realization that the web has evolved, has re-invented itself and has reached a milestone.

Is the same movement afoot in the Structured Settlement industry?

Patrick Hindert my partner at S2KM seems to believe so. His terminology for this milestone is 'Stage 3' and the changes he sees are reflected in this series of slides (click the slide to enlarge).

The history of Structured Settlements

Transfer dynamics

Stage 3 changes

Influence of the internet

 

KM has a number of roles to play in this vertical market:

• Sharing learning and facilitating collaboration between the multiple players in Structured Settlements3.0 - judges, plaintiff lawyers, annunity providers, transfer and trust companies, settlement planners, brokers and subject matter experts.
• Enabling faster, cheaper, more effective business communication, transactions and money transfers between all the parties involved.
• Providing instant and easy to understand information on plaintiff rights, legislative changes, case law decisions and changing tax rules.