The decision to commute or factor is simple or complex depending on how deep you dig and where you stand!!
Through my partner Patrick Hinderd, I've been involved in the S2 (structured settlement) industry for the past 6 years. This is a complex legal area, ripe for the application of KM practices.
The recent, 12/25/06 release of a paper by Rob Wood calls into question the legality and economics of Insurance Companies that seek to 'factor' their issued structured settlement agreements through commutation, as this may violate IRC Section 130(c) that prohibits acceleration.
There is a fine line between 'acceleration' and the legal safe harbor afforded by IRS 5892 that merits a deeper look at assignments, 'automatic' commutation and potential conflicts between State and Federal laws. This is an area that clearly cries for clarification via concept mapping.
What say you?
PKM is a necessity just to protect us from bad goverment.
Posted by: David Locke | January 02, 2007 at 11:59 AM
Hindert's blog that mentions this "State as Remainder Beneficiary" shows just how outrageous the healthcare system is.
The goverment forces us to live longer through public health infrastructure investments, so they can lay claim to our estates. A person on an annuity eventually has to be on Madicare, so the state is the ultimate receipent of malpractice settlements. So where is the state interest in preventing malpractice. This undermines the regulation of medicine. So anyone could be a doctor and that is ok with the state. That is what free markets is about.
The good thing is that the average citizen isn't out there reading the laws and regulations that are being written. We don't need mindmaps. We need print.
Posted by: David Locke | January 02, 2007 at 11:58 AM
So the insurance companies have found a new way to weasel out of their responsibilities, whose surprised.
I'm sure a mind map will make a difference to the receipents of settlements. "Yeah, Joe, is shows me right here in this diagram how I got screwed," KM at its best.
The insurance companies write the laws, so what do you expect, and since when was a contract a contract?
Commutation wasn't an issue in S2 the last time I was involved with it. It is just an example of the explication of knowledge. It emmerged. But, did KM have anything to do with it, or was it the greed of one single attorney somewhere?
Posted by: David Locke | January 02, 2007 at 11:40 AM