by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
The National Association of Settlement Purchasers has taken credit for reforms spawned by bad business practices within a "shadow industry" to an industry, in which industry leaders had denied bad practices were happening prior to Washington Post exposes that began to appear in August 2015.
In an opinion letter to the Washington Post dated February 5, 2016, the "Jane Curtin" to my "Dan Ackroyd" of a latter day SNL Weekend Update, Patricia Laborde speaks of the role of NASP in greater transparency for structured-settlement industry. As head of "N-ASP", I wonder why she's content to "hy-phen-eight" when a ten would do. As Sallah might have said to Indiana Jones when confronted with a slithery mass at the Well of Souls, "N-Asps , Very Dangerous".
None of the regulations proposed, that NASP supports, fully attack the root of the problems which is the complete lack of regulation about how structured settlement annuitants can be solicited and by whom. Felons have operated in the "structured-settlement" space due to lack of the a licensing standard and a lack of regulator. One former and one current NASP member have represented photos from a stock photo library as customers before they were exposed. It's quite the joke. I suspect that the public will see more shocking stories that will make light work of the attempt to characterize the bad news as if it were brief summer squall.
Former Maryland insurance commissioner Dwight Bartlett stated in his own opinion to the editor of WaPo "The appropriate state agencies to enforce this requirement would perhaps be the state insurance departments, as the requirement parallels similar requirements for the sale of life insurance policies".
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