by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC
A banner ad in the right column of DealFlow Media's Structured Settlements Wire attempts to induce advertisers with the promise that 5,000 Structured Settlements Industry Specialists… 5,000 Professionals Who can Make a Difference will see your ad.
In referring to the "industry", prospective advertisers may wish to ask, are we referring to DealFlow Media Director of Sales Jim Patrick's hypothesis or, DealFlow Media Editor and Publisher Brett Goetschius definition of the structured settlement industry (i.e. his frame is "wouldn't really call it an industry but a "market")? Depending on WHO YOUR TARGET MARKET IS there clearly could be a significant difference between expectation and reality.
You see it has already been well established that the structured settlement industry is comprised of 600-700 individuals and insurers who create structured settlements not 5,000! There is also a settlement purchasing industry, with its own trade association, the National Association of Settlement Purchasers (NASP). Settlement purchasers and pre-settlement funding companies
DealFlow Media continues to mischaracterize the two industries as one, supporting a a flawed convergence theory. Based on articles appearing in its publication "Structured Settlements Report" it has also unjustifiably lumped in pre settlement funding. Neither factoring nor pre settlement funding are even in the statutory definition of structured settlement. These are not the same industries even though they may at different times serve the same prospects FOR DIFFERENT REASONS. To demonstrate the fantasy ponder these questions:
Are a practicing physician and a medical malpractice lawyer part of the same industry because the lawyer will sue the doctor if the doctors's patient has a dispute over a medical procedure?
Is a chiropodist in the same industry as a manicurist, because one deals with hammer toes
and the other paints them
?
C'mon…We're talking the difference between "plantar fascia" and "prima facie" here!
The structured settlement industry is NOT INTERESTED in being glommed with the likes of Peachtree Settlement Funding which consistently brags about all the purchased structured settlement payment rights it has securitized but, with discount rates known to be consistently in the 19% range, in my opinion, provides little value to an structured settlement annuitant who actually shops around.
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