Out on the fringes of the structured settlement industry, the Founding and Current Presidents of the Society of Settlement Planners (10% of the SSP 20) have a jumbled sense of priorities when it comes to their marketing hype about how anyone working for the defense is purportedly "screwing plaintiffs".
Last month in my post Society of Settlement Planners Courting Controversy Again?, I reported on a particular aspect of the Premier Settlements website that I felt was highly inaccurate and portions of which, in my opinion, were defamatory. The web page in question is still there! If you click on the link to the post you will see my entire argument point by point. Today I noticed that Settlement Professionals has an almost identical list. I've compared the two lists below. While they are quite similar, the ranking of what each claims is now purportedly egregious differs between Jack Meligan and Chuck Derenne. For your convenience here is "Los Presidentes" Top 10 "play by play":
1. Derenne In-house annuity programs that are noncompetitive and huge profit centers (the biggest abuse) Meligan 10: In-house annuity programs that are non-competitive and huge profit centers.
2. Derenne Defense broker commission rebates and kickbacks (25-50% are common) Meligan 8: Defense broker commission rebates and kickbacks
3. Derenne Post-settlement medical underwriting (tremendous savings here) Meligan 7: Post-settlement medical underwriting and re-underwriting.
4. Derenne Daily-rate annuity pricing (could be substantial dollars saved here) Meligan 6: Daily rate annuity pricing.
5. Derenne Jumbo-case annuity discounts (there’s always room to sharpen a pencil for defense) Meligan 5: Jumbo case annuity discounts.
6. Derenne Last-minute switching of annuity carriers (why do they hide the company’s name until the end) Meligan 3: Last-minute switching of annuity carriers.
7. Derenne Unique Inferior financially-rated annuity carriers (often the case with in-house programs)
8. Derenne Approved lists of annuity carriers (restricts free market competition) Meligan 9: Approved lists of defense-loyal annuity brokers.
9. Derenne Cash refund settlement options (Department of Justice loves to use these) Meligan 4: Cash refund settlement options.
10. Cost savings fuel even more tort reform (need we say any more)Meligan 1
Meligan Unique 2: Outdated arguments about why plaintiffs can’t control their own structures.
Meligan may be libeling structured settlement brokers by his statement that "Defense brokers commonly kickback or rebate 25% to 50% of their commission to the defendant's insurer" Derenne similarly states "Defense broker commission rebates and kickbacks (25-50% are common)". Neither qualifies the statement. Many of the other statements are defamatory as well as they broadly accuse an entire industry segment of illegal deeds. Rebating or kickbacks are illegal in most states. I certainly hope for their sake that these two have proof that this is happening in December 2006.
A portion of Meligan's new website update is a virtual scrapbook of yesterday's news, which would be clear to industry insiders, but not the public, to be compiled for maximum sensationalist shock value for the clientele he seeks.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am not shy and if there was a pervasive problem I'd research it and write about it and present it with evidence. I really object to the distateful manner in which these two present their points, without substantiation of the facts, and qualifying their accusations, which have been over generalized. I'm confident that my view is shared by the majority.
Meligan is a bright guy and a skilled professional who actually did a fair amount of defense work only 10 or so years ago. Yet his style is so "Springfield, NJ" circa 1992 not to mention his prancing around to a cast of thousands (of trial lawyers) singing "The Hills Are Alive with the Sounds of Salzburg " (memorandum). He doesn't need to be this way to get across his message or get business. Neither does Derenne.
As I cited in my post Thanksgiving Quote of Yesteryear From Plaintiff Structured Settlement Advocate May Surprise You, lawyer Richard B. Risk, Jr., Esq. also a founding member of the SSP stated "Not every broker who gets introduced to a case by the casualty insurer is an adversary of the claimant, as Meligan and Derenne imply from the fringes.
Other posts that may be of interest on the subject matter
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