by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Businessmen who make gobs of money by getting structured settlement annuitants to sell their structured settlements for cash now may not the best sources for financial advice when it comes to your structured settlement.
For instance mincemeat was made of Genex Capital CEO Roger Proctor's plaintiff wail from 2010 that you should sell your structured settlement "to protect yourself against interest rate rises that will make you poorer". Six years on, anyone who had heeded Roger Proctor's "joust at the windmill" of clairvoyance would have lost lots of money because Armageddon did not happen. Proctor was even peddling this sales pitch as far back as June 2009. Similar losses would have occurred if you succumbed to "The Sirens" of Woodbridge Structured Funding about AIG structured settlements in 2008.
But what would happen if there were even lower or negative interest rates in the savings or bond markets?
If there were even lower or even negative rates, investors would be scrambling for yield, right?. If your savings account is paying zero or confiscatory interest rates where do you think the investors backing purchasers of structured settlement payment rights would go? They are already doing it and we're not at zero or negative. They would seek out the exact type of safe yield that structured settlement payments provide to personal injury victims, wrongful death survivors and others who elect to receive structured settlements when their lawsuits settle. Insurance companies are legally required to maintain reserves to back up their obligations and such reserves are tested frequently, subject to annual audits in each of the states they are licensed to do business.
At a time when the reckless behavior of participants in the structured settlement secondary market is worse than ever, with no licensing or industry regulator, why would things get any better if interest rates were lower or negative and you hold the cards with your structured settlement? I would expect them to get significantly worse. The structured settlement secondary market, an industry with an already shady reputation as predators and carrion feeders, sprinkled with a few felons, has spawned forgery of hundreds of judge's names on structured settlement transfer orders in two states and national front page exposes about exploitation of African Americans cannot be expected to get better in those circumstances without adequate regulation that includes solicitation.
So don't be seduced by a free Ipad, gas card or a lap dance at a strip joint, or in the case of one company... a joint. If you have a structured settlement, don't let anyone fool you into selling your structured settlement for cash now if savings rates and go to zero or negative.
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