by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC RSP
Federal regulators closed 4 more banks on February 19, 2010 bringing the year's total to 20.
There were 140 bank failures last year, the highest annual number of failures since 1992, when the country was at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The 2009 failures cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. As a comparison there were 25 bank failures in 2008 and only three in 2007.
Depositors' money is insured up to $250,000 per account through 2014. The FDIC's expectations are a $100B outflow over the next 4 years. Banks are assessed premiums each year and in 2009 were mandated by the FDIC to prepay premiums for 2010-2012 to help replenish the withered coffers of the bank insurance fund.
That being said it is worth pointing out that during the same time period of this financial crisis no structured settlement annuity issuer has been taken over by state insurance regulators and ALL of the structured annuity issuers writing structured settlements have made their payments to annuitants.
Hi John,
I enjoy your blog, thanks for keeping this up.
I'm a young professional just starting out and I'm trying to learn as much as possible. I'm finding your posts very helpful. For instance, your take on a structure as a "job that you can never get fired from" is excellent. I plan on using that in future client meetings, if you don't mind.
Being knowledgeable about not just Structured Settlements in general, but the financial system as a whole is extremely important in this job. Education will be very important as this industry moves forward, as a very large percentage of the professionals are of the baby boom age (including my mentor, who has been a settlement professional since the early 80's). Once that age group starts to hang up their structure hats there will be a huge need for new professionals. Will they be knowledgeable enough to keep our industry going? It's a scary thought.
Posted by: Chris | February 21, 2010 at 02:55 PM