Earlier today Symetra Life Insurance Company announced that it is withdrawing its membership in the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA). One way or another, the move was bound to happen as Symetra’s forward business model is in conflict with NSSTA’s by laws and resigning was a sensible thing to do. Symetra’s business model includes both the business of creating or manufacturing structured settlement annuities, and its solicitation of "cash now’ structured settlement factoring of its own structured settlements as well as those manufactured by other annuity issuers, via its subsidiary Clearscape Funding Corporation.
Whether or not you are a supporter of structured settlement factoring or factoring company marketing practices, in less than a year Symetra’s move to the model which included Clearscape was perceived, by the structured settlement industry, as their attempt to be "the next JG Wentworth". You only need read my posts in the Advertising Wall of Shame to see what that implies, in my opinion.
Some in the industry, including this writer, wistfully remember Symetra Life’s predecessor SAFECO Life’s one-time leadership position in the structured settlement industry and see it a pity that it has come to this.
It is my opinion that in a position of trust with brokers, advisors, plaintiffs, plaintiff attorneys and trial lawyers alike, one cannot have the perception that "the creator" is also "the destroyer."
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