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The best financial planners advise their clients to be prepared for life’s events, planned ones as well as surprise ones.

Some of us are more able to plan for life’s twists and turns, but most of us do not have the financial assets to prepare in advance for life’s expenses, it doesn’t matter if they are expected, such as weddings, or if they are unexpected surprises, such as medical emergencies or a collapse in the housing market.

Financial planners recognize that life comes with surprises. As Mr. Rick Annaert, President and CEO of Manulife Securities, an affiliate company of John Hancock Financial Services, said in a recent interview, “You can’t prepare for all of life’s events, of course”.  He explained that “Life is better when you’re prepared. Financial planning helps you prepare for life’s most significant events – your children’s education, the wedding of a son or daughter, your lifestyle in retirement, being able to care for your elders. You can’t prepare for all of life’s events of course, but when you identify and plan for most of them, life is just better. Financial planning makes that happen.” **

Financial planners say that having a financial plan helps families to be prepared for planned or voluntary financial obligations like weddings and kids’ college expenses, as well as for unplanned or involuntary financial obligations such as an illness or losing a job or helping a family member.  A completely ready financial plan is a wonderful objective for all of us to try to have, but most people live life without having the cash in the bank to deal with life’s unexpected events and changes.

In this sense, annuitants receiving structured settlement payments are among the fortunate few who have assets they can access in times of need or financial stress.

According to Jane Olshewksi, manager of Investors Group Financial planning programs, families need to be prepared for “life’s bumps and bruises – unanticipated changes such as a serious illness or a job loss, for example, have financial consequences”. **

In fact, annuitants who sell their payments are just dealing with the inevitability that many financial planners see as their most important job – preparing for the unexpected.  We all have to deal with life’s changes and surprises.

None of us has a crystal ball so we cannot be ready for every change, but we all want to be able to react to changes. Some of us may have to sell our investments, or sell our house, or take out a loan – or sell our structured settlement payments.  Annuitants are just doing what we all do: trying to react to life’s changes in the best possible way we can.

Only 1 – 2% of structured settlement payments are sold each year, and it seems reasonable that 1 -2% of annuitants need an escape mechanism to deal with unexpected changes in life’s events, especially in a world of 10% unemployment.

It seems reasonable to us that as long as annuitants are dealt with fairly and reasonably, then what they are doing is ok. The problem is how it is done.

In other words, in times of need, it’s not selling structured settlement payments that is the problem, it’s selling too many payments or selling for too little money that is the problem.

Strategic Capital is here to help annuitants deal with life’s changes. Please call to speak to our experts should you have any questions 1-866-256-0088.

Workers compensation payments and minor or child structured settlement payments are hard and sometimes impossible to transfer to a purchaser.

Workers compensation settlements

The laws regarding workers compensation settlements are very different from state to state. Not only are the worker’s compensation laws different, but the laws that rule whether one can sell or not sell are very different from state to state.  For this reason, it is not possible to develop a “standard” model for the sale of annuity payments that were acquired as a result of workers comp settlements because these payments are governed not only by the structured settlement protection statutes, but also by state specific workers comp statutes that are in effect. So, even though a particular state may allow for the sales of one’s structured settlement payments, the same state may not allow for this type of sale if it is the result of a worker’s comp settlement. That being said, each workers comp settlement must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, before determining if a purchase is possible.

For example, in Ohio, the structured settlement protection act includes worker’s comp payments as being assignable, but the worker’s comp laws in Ohio specifically prohibit these payments from being assigned. On the other hand, in Ohio, worker’s comp payments are able to be sold for a lump sum because both the worker’s comp laws and the structured settlement protection act indicate that the payments are assignable.

Minor or children’s cases

Often, a minor (anyone under the age of 18) will have been awarded structured settlement payments to compensate the child for the loss of a parent, or for an injury or other damage that the child had to endure.

Sometimes, these annuitants consider selling their payments after they have reached the age of majority, which is most often the age of 18. In these cases, the person is assumed under the law to be able to make his or her own decision, and the court regards the sellers as it would any other adult.

Strategic Capital has helped many clients who were awarded the payments when they were children and then decided to or needed to sell some of their structured payments as adults.

In a number of other cases, we have been approached to buy structured settlement payments from an annuitant who is not yet 18, and therefore still a child. We proceed very carefully and methodically in these cases. Usually, the parent or other guardian of the child is initiating the sale of the payments. And 90% of the time, the parent or guardian wants to sell the payments for the benefit of the child, to give the child a better education, to deal with an unexpected medical expense of the child or, in one case, to send the teenage child to a special rehab program for drug abusers.

It is very important for us and the court to understand exactly why the sale is taking place. The court especially will want to know that the lump sum will be used for the child’s benefit and that the parent or guardian is not selling the payments for their own benefit so that the child will no longer have the promised payments when they reach adulthood. Occasionally a special guardian, a guardian will be appointed by the court to have a second opinion of the reason for the sale of payments. Sometimes the guardian will agree with the sale and sometimes will disagree. We do not deal with parents or guardians on behalf the children unless we feel that the reason for the sale is for the benefit of the child, and, as always, we try to structure the transaction so as to minimize the impact on the original structured settlement.

If you have a Minor OR child’s structured settlement case or a worker’s compensation structured settlement, please Call to discuss the details with a Strategic Capital Expert. Call us at 1-866-256-0088

One of our attorneys was recently contacted by an annuitant who needed our attorney’s advice on an urgent matter. This annuitant had completed previous transactions involving his structured settlement payments with two different factoring companies. According to Strategic Capital’s attorney, the annuitant was articulate and appeared to understand completely his transactions.

The reason for his call to our attorney was that he was being deluged with “factoring company solicitations”.

According to the annuitant, he was receiving multiple items of mail and phone calls from these companies each week. He described the phone calls as aggressive, persistent and annoying. He mentioned to our attorney that he has, on multiple occasions, asked to be removed from their solicitation lists and for the factoring companies to cease their repeated solicitations, but to no avail. The annuitant wanted to find out how our attorney could help him to have his name removed from the other two factoring companies mailing/contact lists.
The attorney has no control over the other companies and could not do much, but if the annuitant had dealt with Strategic capital in the first place he would not have had these problems.

Another interesting and troubling story is from an attorney in Texas. The attorney was in court on a structured settlement transfer case. After the hearing, the seller told the attorney that she was very upset with some of the factoring companies. The attorney asked her why she felt that way. Her complaints were as follows:

- The representatives of the company she completed her first deal with did not listen to her in terms of what she wanted to sell; they wanted her to sell a lot more and they ignored her needs. After she completed her deal, they constantly harassed her with follow up phone calls and solicitations trying to initiate another transaction, 2 months after the first deal had closed!

- A few years later, the annuitant found another factoring company for her second deal, but found similar issues; not listening to her, pushing her to sell more than she wanted, and constant follow up harassing phone calls after the completion of the transfer.

- After these two deals, the annuitant stated that other companies become aware of her previous transactions and had been harassing her at home, trying to solicit her to do a deal with them over the course of the past year.

- When she did want to do another factoring transaction, she managed to find a company that she felt would treat her with respect.

You MUST do your research on the company you sell your structured settlement payments to. You should only work with companies that treat you well right from the start.

Please comment if you have a similar story or wish to speak to one of Strategic Capital’s experts.

Selling structured settlement payments is a simple and fairly quick process

1. Annuitant contacts few factoring companies to get a competitive quote
2. A structured settlement expert contacts the annuitant (seller) to understand the annuitant current and future needs.
3. Annuitant (seller) accepts a quote received from the structured settlement experts
4. Copies of disclosures and contracts are sent to the annuitant (Seller) to be signed.
5. Factoring company will send the signed documents to their attorney located in the annuitant’s state to be filed with the annuitant’s local court.
6. A hearing date is scheduled by the annuitant’s local court.
7. The judge may want to have the annuitant appear in front of them to determine if the transfer is in the best interest of the annuitant.
8. The judge has to approve and sign the order.
9. The approved order is then sent to the insurance company for their acknowledgment.
10. The annuitant is funded by the factoring company.

Please call us should you have any questions or inquiries about any selling your structured settlement payments and the process involved  1-866-256-0088

In 2000, the National Structured Settlements Trade Association and National Association of Settlement Purchasers agreed on language that was designed to protect the consumer when selling their structured settlement payments for cash. This language is referred to as the “Structured Settlement Protection Act” and 47 states have adopted laws that are closely aligned with the model statutory language.

The District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Wisconsin are the only 4 jurisdictions that have not enacted their own Structured Settlement Protection Acts.

Annuitants (sellers) who live in the District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Wisconsin could reasonably be worried that if their state has no structured settlement protection act, they would not be able to sell any of their structured settlement payments. However, the good news is that they are able to sell and transfer their structured settlement payment rights under the Structured Settlement Protection Act of the State in which the insurance company who makes the payment is located.

The federal law governing the transfer of structured settlement payments, Internal Revenue Code Section 5891, requires that every transfer of structured settlement payment rights must be approved by a court order. And the same law legislates where the court order must be obtained: in general, IRC Section 5891 requires that the court order be obtained in a court in the state where the annuitant lives in accordance with the state’s Structured Settlement Protection Act. However, if there is no Structured Settlement Protection Act in the state where the annuitant lives, then the court order can be obtained in the state where the insurance company is located, in accordance with the Structured Settlement Protection Act in that particular state.

So, if any structured settlement annuitant is currently living in the D.C., New Hampshire, Vermont, or Wisconsin, they don’t need to worry about not being able to sell their structured settlement payments for a cash lump sum. All they have to do is to contact Strategic Capital and we will obtain the court order from the court in the state where their insurance company is located.
Please call us should you have any questions or inquiries about any selling your structured settlement payments and the process involved – 1-866-256-0088

On October 1, 2010, the Texas Supreme Court overturned a state law that prevented lottery winners from selling their final two Texas lottery prize payments in exchange for a lump sum.

The court’s unanimous decision delivered Friday, October 1^st, 2010 by Justice Phil Johnson, successfully struck down struck down part of the 1999 amendments to the Texas Lottery Act.  Under 1999 amendments, prize winners were allowed to sell and assign their Texas lottery prize payments to others except that the law did not allow them to sell the last two prize payments.

This decision came out of a case that was started by a Texas Lottery prize winner who wanted to assign his final two annual installment prize payments as part of a financial arrangement by which he was to pay a bank debt. The Texas Lottery Commission refused to recognize the assignment because the Lottery Act, in direct conflict with the Texas Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), prohibits the sale and assignment of a winner’s last two lottery prize payments. The Supreme Court ruled that the UCC in Texas allows the sale of any lottery prize payments and that it takes precedence over the Texas Lottery Act. Therefore, sections 466.406 and 466.410 of the Texas Lottery Act are overruled to the extent they restrict or prohibit the prize winner’s ability to assign any payments.

If you are interested in considering the sale of the last two payments of your Texas lottery prize, or any of your prize payments please call us at 1-866-256-0088 and one of our experts would be pleased to discuss your options with you.

Strategic Capital can even provide you with a cash advance of $10,000 or more, depending on your transaction!

We buy lottery prize payments in every state that allows that sale of prize payments. If you have won the lottery, you could sell all or part of your future lottery payment for lump sum cash today and use your lump sum cash to pay off your debts, buy a house, pay for education costs, or do all three! (Or even buy that vintage corvette you always wanted!)

Strategic Capital has been in business since 1994. And we have bought over $1.5 billion in future payments. Call us at 1-866-256-0088 to speak to one of our experts.

To find out how much lump sum cash you can get for your lottery prize payments, or to ask about our CASH ADVANCES, please call us at 1-866-256-0088 and speak to one of our experts.

Strategic Capital has recently posted a new blog post on selling structured settlement payments while going through bankruptcy or has already filed for bankruptcy. With their permission, we have re-posted this blog post below:

You CAN sell your structured settlement payments, whether you are going through chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings or afterward, once your bankruptcy has been discharged.

In many states, Structured Settlement payments are considered an exempt asset which means that they are not subject to the claims of creditors. However it is imperative to let the bankruptcy trustee know about your structured settlement and to have the structured settlements listed on your Bankruptcy list of assets. If the structured settlement is not included in the asset list, by law the trustee has the right to seize undisclosed assets, including your structured settlement payments.

If you are currently going through bankruptcy proceedings and you want to sell your structured settlement payments, your bankruptcy trustee has to be aware of what you want to do and must sign off on the required documents. The bankruptcy trustee is the final decision maker and he or she could deny the entire structured settlement payment purchase. Therefore, it is important to make sure that your bankruptcy trustee is on board with the decision to see any of your structured settlement payments.

When it comes to selling structured settlement payments, the bankruptcy trustee will first have to obtain the bankruptcy Judge’s approval, and then the factoring company that buys your payments will be able to apply for a state court order. This is an important point – once the bankruptcy judge approves the sale of your structured settlement payments, a state court order is still needed, in order to satisfy the structured settlement transfer laws.

If you are in a state that requires Independent Professional Advice (IPA), the fact that the bankruptcy trustee and the bankruptcy lawyer obtained the bankruptcy judge’s approval satisfies the IPA requirement, so that a separate IPA is not necessary.

Let’s say that you have been discharged from bankruptcy then you can sell your structure settlement for cash – the decision is up to you, and it is a standard sale. You sign the documents, you make the decisions and you get the money. The structured settlement factoring company who is buying your payments will still do a search of your past records. The company will see that you have been discharged from bankruptcy and it will want to make sure that you have listed the structured settlement payments as an asset. If you had listed them, then there will be no problem or hold up. If you did not list them, then it is a problem, and both you and the company buying your payments will have to put some extra work into getting you your cash. What you have to do will depend on your situation. We have faced this situation number of times, and the vast majority of times we have solved the problem and funded our client.

Your structured settlement payments may be an untapped resource that you can use to get out of bankruptcy proceedings faster and get on with your life. It is very important to deal with a company that has the experts who know how to transfer structured settlement payments and can deal with any problems that come up!
Please call Strategic Capital if you have any questions about any part of the process – 1-866-256-0088

Recently Strategic Capital has conducted a study on their clients and the effects of the financial crisis on their client’s financial decisions. With Strategic Capital’s permission, we are re-blogging their blog post titled “Before and after the Great Recession – what our clients do with their money”.

The financial crisis of 2008/2009 resulted in the collapse of large financial institutions, the collapse of house prices and a stubbornly high unemployment rate, which has left too many people without jobs and with money troubles. The Great Recession contributed to the failure of key businesses, a drop in consumer wealth estimated in the trillions of dollars, and serious shortfalls for all levels of government that has affected many of the services we used to take for granted.

In the structured settlement industry, we have also seen the effects of the financial meltdown. Over the years, Strategic Capital has dealt with many clients who had various reasons for selling their structured settlement payments in order to deal with problems or take advantage of opportunities.

Strategic Capital experts thought it would be interesting and useful to look back at some of our clients’ reasons for selling their structured settlement payments in 2006/2007, before the Great Recession, and do a comparison to the reasons for selling in 2010. And so they looked at a sample of Strategic Capital clients and their reasons for selling their structured settlement payments.

Buying Homes

IN 2006/2007, 26% of Strategic Capital clients used their lump sum to buy a new home and 10% used their cash lump sum to renovate their home. In 2010, 13% of their clients used their money to renovate their home, very similar to 2006/2007. However, in 2010, only 10% of our clients used their lump sum to buy a new home, a drop of more than 60% in people using their lump sum to buy a home this year!

Paying Down Debt

Strategic Capital reads and hears a lot about people who are paying down their debts and re-evaluating how they spend their money these days. Strategic Capital has seen a dramatic change in the way their clients are thinking about their debts as well. Before the Great Recession in 2006/2007, 25% of Strategic Capital clients sold some of their structured settlement payments to pay off debts. Their clients often use their lump sum to pay off high interest rate debt, which makes a lot of sense. And when they pay off any debt, it eases much of their financial stress and pressure, which increases their quality of life.

In 2010, Strategic Capital saw a dramatic increase in clients paying off their debts – 45%, or almost half of our clients, used their cash to pay off debts, which is almost double the proportion that used their lump sum to pay off debts prior to the Great Recession. Just like in 2006/2007, but even more so, this year clients are paying off high rate debt (for example, credit card rates are in the up to 20% range) and easing some of the financial pressures that they might be feeling, especially since a number of our clients have become unemployed in this recession.

Career Training

Speaking of unemployment, many of Strategic Capital clients are using their money to pay for job and career training. In 2010, 16% of Strategic Capital clients are using their money to go back to school so that they can learn new skills for new careers. This is almost 3 times the 6% of clients who were doing this in 2006/2007, prior to the Great Recession! Our clients look like they are doing everything they can by using their resources and their resourcefulness to meet and deal with life’s challenges and opportunities.

Strategic Capital clients’ structured settlement payments were there for them at the time of their injury, when they were vulnerable. And their structured settlement payments are there for them now, to help them deal with changes in their lives. It looks to Strategic Capital like their clients made the most of their structured settlement payments when they needed income more, at the time of their injury, and now their clients are making the most of their structured settlement when they need cash the most – structured settlements have been an essential part of our clients’ financial and life well being.

Please call or email Strategic Capital to learn more 1-866-256-0088 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-866-256-0088 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or info@strategiccapital.com

Budget cutbacks:
In 2009, the United States confronted the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. As a result, most states face budget gaps of unprecedented proportions. In 2010, California made difficult but necessary decisions to close a $60 billion budget deficit in order to prevent a major fiscal crisis. California has had to adopt reforms in every area of government to contain costs. One of the significant state general fund adjustments was the reduction to trial courts operations for a total of $100 million in reductions.

Backlogs:
As a result, these budget cutbacks have had a negative impact on timing of court hearing dates. Courts in various counties have resorted to a range of cost cutting measures, for instance, mandatory court closures, leave of absence days without pay, staff reductions and increased workloads. Consequently, court rooms are backlogged, and the number of cases that need to be processed per day has increased drastically. The Backlog affects all court hearings, including hearings for structured settlement transfers.

Hearing dates once the documents have been filed and processed:
In the past, one could simply request a date for a hearing and the court would assign the date requested. However, ever since the budget cutbacks, hearing dates have become a matter of “when” the first available date is. In some counties, like Los Angeles, the first available date could be up to 90 days away.

Filing and Processing of documents:
Prior to the 2010 budget cutbacks, the average turnaround time for document filing, processing and assigning of hearing dates, was between 7 to 10 business days. Currently, though, as a result of staff reductions, and varying from county to county, it may take anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 months to even obtain a court date. These times vary from county to county because certain counties have greater budget than others.

California is not alone. State courts across the country are struggling to deal with the consequences of the Great Recession.

Hopefully in 2010, there will be new effective solutions for the backlogged court system.