by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
A Florida petition for transfer structured settlement payment rights by New York City's Advance Funding misrepresented to the Broward County Court that Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and Genworth had comparable financial ratings. and used quotes from two related companies, including a company that was not even licensed to do business in New York, to satisfy a statutory two annuity issuer price comparison.
In the Broward County petition in case number CACE14006759 Advanced Funding LLC v Rae L. Lee, Jose Manuel Camacho, Jr represented to the court that:
Advance Funding LLC "provided to Payee a Disclosure statement, the form and content of which complies with Florida statute 626.99296(3)(a)(2), more than 10 days prior to the date on which the Payee was first to incur any obligation with respect to the transferee. Additionally, Transferee has also provided a Disclosure statement which complies with the New York transfer act. True and correct copies of the Disclosure statements rare attached hereto…" "
The germane part of the New York structured Settlement Protection Act disclosure requirements reads as follows:
5-1703(c) the discounted present value of the payments to be transferred, which shall be identified as the “calculation of current value of the transferred structured settlement payments under federal standards for valuing annuities”, and the amount of the applicable federal rate used in calculating such discounted present value;
5-1703(d) the price quote from the original annuity issuer or, if such price quote is not readily available from the original annuity issuer, then a price quote from two other annuity issuers that reflects the current cost of purchasing a comparable annuity for the aggregate amount of payments to be transferred;
In the aforementioned New York disclosure, Camacho represented that Advance Funding, LLC represented in the transfer disclosure submitted to the Payee that "Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the insurance company now making payments to you, will not provide a quote for the issuance of a new policy that pays the specific periodic payments that you are selling to Advance. Genworth Life Insurance Company and Genworth Life insurance Company of New York are companies with comparable ratings"
Purpose of Two annuity issuer rule in 5-1703(d) of New York General Obligations Law
The purpose of the two annuity issuer rule is to assure fair representative price comparison. Advance Funding LLC has taken a short cut by using two companies, which while by definition separate legal entities are part of the same parent. usually there is very little difference in pricing. Indeed in this case the name of the annuity contract that Advance Funding cites is the same with the exception of one is for sale in New York and one isn't. Given that the New York law was enacted to protect New Yorkers, it can be surmised that the legislature intended the comparable cost to be from two New York licensed insurers. Advance Funding has therefore not made a fair representation to the Court and to the Payee.
Genworth did not have comparable ratings to Metropolitan life Insurance Company at the time of Advance Funding's disclosure to Rae L. Smith
By definition the third party ratings at the time were not comparable ratings. Furthermore Genworth's financial pressures due to its Long Term care block was well publicized.
A.M. Best
- MetLife A+
- Genworth A
Moody's
- MetLife Aa3
- Genworth A3
Standard & Poors
- MetLife AA-
- Genworth A- (NOTE: In 2014 there were well publicized concerns about Genworth's long term care portfolio and indeed later that year S&P cut Genworth's rating further to BBB+.
A company with the same ratings as MetLife might have had more expensive annuity rates and thus potentially made Advance Funding's offer look worse
Jose Manuel Camacho, Jr, the crooked Miami Lawyer who admitted to forging judge's signatures on structured settlement transfer documents was due to be sentenced on August 19, 2016 for his crimes, but has been continued until a guardian ad litem for Judge Carlos Rodriguez, completes a review of all the 18 applicable transfer cases. where his Rodriguez' signature was forged by Camacho. Download MC_Docket Rae Smith
How often is Advance Funding making such misrepresentations?
It is certainly reasonable to ask and I am curious, in how many other statutory disclosures, has Advance Funding LLC used related companies, including non-admitted companies, in an attempt to satisfy NY General Obligations Law 5-1703(d); and how many times has Advance Funding LLC misrepresented in statutory disclosures to New York judges, New York residents, or to courts in other jurisdictions such as Florida, where the NY disclosure was submitted with the other state petitions to transfer, that insurance companies with significantly different ratings had comparable ratings?