Blog

The California MICRA Amendments

When Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 35 on May 23, 2022, amending California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), it concluded one of the California’s longest running political battles and substantially improved the fairness of California’s medical malpractice statute. The amended law goes into effect January 1, 2023. Among its significant changes, AB 35 raises...

Independent Life’s New Product, iStructure, featured on Structured Retail Products

Independent Insurance Group, LLC (“Independent Group”) announced today that its life and annuity subsidiary, Independent Life Insurance Company (“Independent Life”), has successfully launched iStructure, the first uncapped index-linked structured settlement annuity. Independent Life has secured almost $50 million in committed sales for the product from both settlement recoveries and installment sales of real estate and businesses....

Road Traffic Safety

Many structured settlement recipients are victims of road traffic accidents – as drivers, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists or innocent bystanders. Independent Life believes road traffic safety represents a complementary goal that all structured settlement and settlement planning professionals should not only support but also proactively advocate.   National Roadway Safety Strategy Earlier this year, United States...

Structured Settlements and Periodic Payment Judgments Release 71

For many settlement planners and structured settlement annuity providers, the dominant storylines of the past two years have been COVID-19 (COVID), low interest rates and plummeting structured settlement annuity sales.  In 2019, based on industry reports, $6.47 billion of annuities were purchased to fund 26,486 structured settlement cases, for an average per case premium of $244,228.....

Factoring: Is Judicial Education Really the Solution?

For the past 20 plus years, two related industry issues have dominated the strategic agenda of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA): 1) factoring (aka the transfer of structured settlement payment rights) and 2) lack of growth in the primary structured settlement market.   NSSTA’s Legislation Accomplishment By the end of the 1990s, NSSTA...

Settlement Planning Compensation Models

With few exceptions, the topic of consultant compensation receives limited public discussion within the structured settlement and settlement planning communities. A quick review of the websites of three national associations whose members sell structured settlement annuities, NSSTA, AASC,  and SSP, appears to indicate only SSP even mentions the word “compensation.” The SSP references to “compensation”...