Sell Annuity Payments Without Completely Surrendering Structured Settlement
- This was posted on February 27, 2009
What is a structured settlement? A structured settlement is a settlement of money; a financial award that is made to a claimant in what is generally a personal injury or wrongful death case. Oftentimes, while many imagine or assume that someone who is awarded money is given it all at once, claimants in this situation are given a structured settlement. This simply means that instead of all of the money going to them immediately, it is deposited into an annuity. The money is then distributed through equal payments that are sent on a scheduled basis from the annuity.
The structured settlement is often put into place when there is a large sum of money in question. This helps those financially responsible as they can make payments into the annuity; and it allows the recipient of the money to budget it more effectively. But just because a claimant receives a structured settlement doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to sell annuity payments if they choose to do so.
The choice to sell annuity payments, however, should not be confused with selling a structured settlement. In fact, the recipient of a structured settlement does not own the annuity; they own the payments being made from the annuity. And if they need to sell payments to a buyer of structured settlement annuity it is within their right to do so (although sometimes court approval is required) without having to sell all of the annuity payments.
A recipient may choose to sell annuity payments if they are in need of a lump sum of money for a particular purpose. They will then work with a buyer of structured settlement annuity payments; a purchasing company that will buy the number of future payments being sold in exchange for the entirety of cash given to the seller today.
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