Blog

July 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). This legislative anniversary should be recognized and remembered as an important historic milestone among structured settlement and settlement planning professionals who advise personal injury victims and their families. The ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on...

For the vast majority of the 300 plus members of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) who attended the two-day NSSTA-sponsored conference in the Fall of 1990 to learn about “Uniform Periodic Payment of Judgments Act”(“Uniform Act” ), almost all of whom were defense brokers and life company representatives, the potential advantages and benefits of the...

How different might the structured settlement market be today if the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) had endorsed and actively promoted the “Uniform Periodic Payment of Judgments Act” (Uniform Act) beginning in 1990? In retrospect, NSSTA’s failure to support the Uniform Act in 1990 can be viewed as a critical turning point in structured settlement history....

Revisiting Periodic Payment Judgments State periodic payment of judgment statutes originated in the United States as part of the tort reform movements of the 1970s and 1980s, some of which predate the Periodic Payment Settlement Act of 1981 ultimately establishing the federal income tax foundation for structured settlements. Though rarely studied today in industry educational...

Structured Settlements for Minors When a personal injury case involves a minor, structured settlements are frequently considered the best choice for a settlement option compared with other alternatives such as a trust account managed by a bank or investment consultant or a “court-protected” account both of which are typically released to the child at age...

The Gargan Case: Is the U.S. Government a Victim or a Perpetrator? The United States Department of Justice announced last week that Joseph E. Gargan, a scion of the Kennedy family and former Chief Executive Officer of The Pension Company, Inc., pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $8 million that was intended to purchase structured settlement annuities for...