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Structured Settlements and Public Benefits: How We Got Here And Why It Matters Now

By Patrick Hindert and George Luecke Introduction: Understanding the Path to Today’s Challenges This article is the fourth in a six-part series examining how structured settlements interact with public benefit programs in an era of rapid legislative, judicial, and administrative change. As a reminder: Article 1 introduced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), explaining...

Structured Settlements and Medicaid: Building the Legal Framework for Benefit Protection

By Patrick Hindert & George Luecke I. Introduction: A Growing Market Meets a Shifting Regulatory Landscape In 2024, the structured settlement market reached a historic milestone, generating $9.5 billion in annuity premium, the highest annual volume to date. Some industry experts have suggested the industry could reach an aspirational goal of $15 billion in annual...

The SSA in 2025: What Settlement Planners Must Know About a Changing Benefits Landscape

Introduction: SSA’s Expanding Role in the Settlement Planning Landscape The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) has drawn national attention for its sweeping changes to federal programs like Medicaid, Social Security, and ABLE accounts. As discussed in our companion article How the One Big Beautiful Bill Impacts Settlement Planning for Plaintiffs, these legislative developments...

Understanding Childs: The Cornerstone of Structured Attorney Fee Deferrals

I. Introduction As the IRS’s attorney fee deferral enforcement campaign gathers national attention, legal and tax professionals are revisiting the foundations of fee deferral jurisprudence. At the heart of this discussion stands Childs v. Commissioner, 103 T.C. 634 (1994), aff’d, 89 F.3d 856 (11th Cir. 1996), the seminal Tax Court case that validated the deferral...

To Fee of Not to Fee? The IRS Attorney Fee Deferral Campaign

Introduction In December 2024, the IRS announced a new national enforcement campaign targeting attorney fee deferral arrangements. The resulting uncertainty raised serious questions within the legal and settlement planning communities: Does the campaign challenge all fee deferrals,  or only those that deviate from long-standing precedent? Originally published in Tax Notes on June 9, 2025, this article...

iStructure Select: A New Era of Innovation in Structured Settlements

Every once in a while, a new product redefines what’s possible – not by following trends, but by setting them. That’s the spirit behind iStructure Select, Independent Life’s next-generation structured settlement solution. We’re not releasing all the details just yet. But here’s what we can tell you: this is not just a new product. It’s...