by Structured Settlement Watchdog

Bruce E. Cox, a New jersey accountant, has promoted the sale of factored structured settlement payment rights as “Discounted Designer Annuities”. 

In a 9 minute YouTube video posted August 1, 2012,  entitled ” Discounted Designer Annuity paying more than 3X* the 10 Year U.S. Treasury”, it is more than 50% the way through the Bruce Cox video, before there is any mention of an assignment of structured settlement payment (rights). 

The YouTube video was also promoted on September 9, 2014 via a link from Retirement Toolbox, a website asociated with Cox according to his LinKedin profile

They are issued by top rated insurance companies, names that you know. Many of these companies have been around for 100 years or longer. What a pity that Bruce Edward Cox, a licensed insurancelonger.

Acquired structured settlement payment rights ARE NOT annuities

(1) Bruce Cox CPA misleads investors by implying that factored structured settlement payments are annuities and that factored structured settlements are issued by insurance companies.

Factored structured settlement payments are receivables generated through the transfer of structured settlement payment rights via a complex legal process, which carries significantly greater risk than purchasing actual annuities.

Sometimes the payment rights are bought and sold multiple times among investors through a servicing company.

(2) Investors in structured settlement payment rights DO NOT receive the equivalent standing as the original annuitant in the event of insolvency or liquidation of the insurer. Case in point is the liquidation of Executive Life Insurance Company of New York, a New York insurer that is in the process of liquidation. While the purchase of structured settlement payment rights may be an appropriate asset class for some, the lack of statutory protection in a worst case scenario may be of concern to some investors. It must be disclosed up-front.

(3) The sales and solicitation of both annuitants and investors is virtually unregulated. unlike the sale of real annuities, which can only be sold by licensed insurance agents appointed by the life insurers that issue the structured annuities. With the so called ” designer discount annuities” there is no licensing, no self regulatory organization, no enforcement of federal truth in advertising laws, and no oversight other than a judge overseeing the transfer from the original annuitant and whose role is primarily to protect the seller, NOT the investor.

(4) There is nothing designer about buying structured settlement payment rights. It’s more like a used car lot

Some of the “used car lot owners”, who have payment servicing arrangements, can have a “slice and dice’ of pieces of payment streams to suit cash flow needs , but that moves you even further away from the regulated annuity. 

There is simply no need for cutesy labels for the acquisition of structured settlement payment rights.  Call it what it is. A structured settlement receivable, not an insurance product.

• a June 2012 version of the video claimed 7X the 10 Year Treasury

2026 Update

Fourteen years later, the “discounted designer annuity” pitch stands as an early, almost textbook example of why states, regulators, and guaranty associations continue to draw a bright statutory line between annuities and acquired structured settlement payment rights.

New Jersey’s definition of an annuity has not changed: an annuity must be issued by a licensed life insurer. A receivable is not an annuity, regardless of yield, branding, or the creativity of the marketing vocabulary wrapped around it.

What has changed since 2012 is the volume of evidence. Across multiple insolvencies, enforcement actions, and civil disputes, the same pattern documented here in 2012 has repeated with remarkable consistency:

• Receivables marketed as “annuities” or “annuity alternatives.”
• Implied insurer guarantees that do not exist.
• Investors discovering—often too late—that they do not have the standing of an annuitant.
• Sales channels operating outside the licensing, supervision, and advertising rules that govern real annuities.

The 2012 Cox video is now part of the historical record of this pattern. It illustrates the earliest phase of what would later become a national problem: cosmetic compliance—products dressed up to resemble regulated insurance instruments without meeting the statutory requirements.

In 2026, the doctrinal point is clearer than ever:

If it is not issued by a life insurer, it is not an annuity. No amount of yield, branding, or “designer” language changes that.

The terminology has evolved. The marketing has evolved. The risks have not.

This post remains relevant because it captures the moment the industry first began to see how far the “annuity‑adjacent” vocabulary could drift when no regulatory framework existed to stop it.