by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC
I read Patrick Hindert's Structured Settlement 3.0 narrative and his response to "Structured Settlements 3.0: Time for a Rewrite"
Hindert is a scholar and respected author. However his 3 question strategy for structured settlement consultants and/or settlement planners flies right in the face of the clear words of noted plaintiff lawyer, Michael Kaplen, President of the Brain Injury Association of New York State on Legal Broadcast Network's The Settlement Channel. Kaplen felt it rotten that the annuity issuers were writing to annuitants to let them know that they could sell their structured settlement payments. If Kaplen is like any of the clients I canvassed he will think structured settlement brokers who have recommended a structured settlement to one of his clients and then go and say "hey you know what now you can cash out of this" to get them to cash out for another commission are even more rotten.
Is Hindert saying that all structured settlement brokers should go en masse and write to the annuitants that they have connected with over the past 27 years to the tune of billions of dollars a year? This would be a factoring company's wet dream, to be connected and have a direct tap in to the folks that "know where the bodies are buried" and have the annuitants' trust. Sal Venti, a former representative of Novation Capital slimed his way through the March 2005 Society of Settlement Planners meeting soliciting structured settlement brokers to go through the closed files of certain structured settlement brokers to help him identify candidates for factoring.
Structured Settlements 3.1 contains structured settlement and factoring industries that are separate and distinct and should remain that way. This is opposed to Hindert's 3.0 which talks of an overlapping or global industry. The advertising fandango is being cleaned up one case and one company at a time and it must be cleaned up. Regulations must be passed which include standards and licensing. There are some major factoring companies that understand this or are beginning to understand. I have had a dialogue with some of them to share points of view. Some have made a sacrifice or two to do things the right way. Companies such as Settlement Capital, Prosperity Partners, SSE Capital and most recently Stone Street Capital have reached out to get a better understanding.
Its puzzling why Hindert keeps pushing Structured Settlements3.0? Hindert remains a member of the Society of Settlement Planners. He is also a consultant to factoring companies. I'm skeptical that Hindert or The Society of Settlement Planners can put together a statement on factoring that is widely endorsed by practicing trial lawyers. In the face of challenge. The SSP has sheepishly avoided the subject for over a year. One gets a sick feeling that the Society of Settlement Planners needs Hindert's theory as part of a grand scheme to bury the degree to which they have accepted funding from factoring companies and to justify some its members earning fees from placement of factoring business.
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