by John Darer CLU ChFC CSSC RSP CLTC
Peter Arnold ‘picked a peck of pickled factors” yesterday, in San Antonio, Texas.
Peter Arnold has taken the astounding step into the Secondary Market, after two decades serving the National Structured Settlements Trade Association (NSSTA) as Deputy Director,
1. Advising the factoring industry to give money to structured settlement broker companies to pay for their marketing
2. Opining the factoring company that first makes a deal with a structured settlement company will create a domino effect and win the pot of gold**.
3. Advising NASP to keep an eye on what the Consumer Financial Protecton Bureau and American Association of Persons With Disabilities are doing (with respect to protecting structured settlement annuitants)
4. Posting a slide entitled ‘changing of the guard’ posted names and estimated ages of 5 senior NSSTA board members, officials and lawyers, who he worked with for years, ostensibly appearing to support a position that anyone over age 60 in connection with NSSTA as has-beens soon to be replaced. [Arnold denies this]
Perhaps the most gelastic of Arnold’s suggestions was “self-policing” while addressing NASP, a trade association that represents an industry whose sales and solicitation practices are unregulated
The secondary market for structured settlements has a very poor record of self-policing. There is no justification for that to continue.
Stay tuned for national news stories of how structured settlement annuitants have been abused by individuals and entities that Arnold suggests can self police. The most surprising thing is that I have had several conversations with Peter Arnold about this very subject.
Some will find it amusing that the order of the slides in Arnold’s presentation implies that structured settlement industry production has stagnated since the ‘rise of the plaintiff broker’ Download Rise of plaintiff broker stagnancy huh?
Image: clip Art-gif.de
Was Peter Arnold Prescient?
So in terms of primary market and secondary market dalliances… what actually happened?
Rescue Capital
Circa 2012 project of Michael Upchurch
Structured Asset Management Trust (SAM Trust)
Project of Synergy, which involved purchasing a pool of structured settlement receivables held in a trust.
Multistream Capital
Project of Nicholas J. Coccimiglio to raise money to acquire structured settlement receivables that could be sliced and diced as multi streams to fit investment or settlement planning needs.
CrowFly. LLC (2018-2022)
Project of John T. Bair, retired founder of Milestone Consulting and two others Spun as a “fintech firm” in Erie County media, but my watchdog work uncovered multiple instances where Crowfly purchased structured settlement receivables emanating from structured settlement annuities placed by Bair while with Forge Consulting (pre 2012), or Milestone Consulting (the latter from 2012-August 2022). Bair boasted to a 3rd party in an early October 2018 email, of his primary and secondary market straddling. 4 months before folding in August 2022, the Buffalo media made a hulaballoo about how CrowFly was kicking it up a notch.
Various Settlement Planners who placed the SMA Hub “NBA Annuity” that Wasn’t an Annuity
Apparently not satisfied with the regulated insurance products they were meant to offer, a group of primary market brokers decided to collaborate on placing an Atlantic Solutions, NV Partners-SMA Hub instrument that conveniently wasn’t an annuity in a disabled man’s trust. This costly blunder inevitably spiraled into litigation and ultimately a settlement.
SMA Hub: Exposing Investment Misrepresentations – Structured Settlements 4Real®Blog January 22, 2022
SMA Hub Purchase Order and Legal Implications – Structured Settlements 4Real®Blog September 21, 2021