by Structured Settlement Watchdog
Milestone Consulting has made a rookie mistake in its explanation of what a structured settlement is. The only thing is that Milestone Consulting is not a rookie.
"Structured settlements entail the defendant or their insurance company paying the sum of the settlement to a third-party insurer. This third-party insurer will then disburse the payments to the plaintiff according to a pre-determined payment schedule over a set period of time.
Why Milestone Consulting is wrong about what structured settlements entail?
- What is "the sum of the settlement"? Take your pick from (a) the total cost of the settlement; (b) the total amount of the payments to be received both now and in the future by the structured settlement payee (c) an uninformed utterance; (d) a lazy utterance that might suggest that focusing on factoring somewhat dulls fundamental knowledge; (e) the consideration for a structured settlement payable to the qualified assignment company; or (f) the working title of a new legal novel?
- Here's how a structured settlement actually works:
- Few structured settlements are established without a qualified assignment. The funds are paid by check or wire to the qualified assignment company (Step 2 above)
- As used in this context by Milestone Consulting, the term "to a third-party insurer" is a misnomer. With one exception, New York Life Insurance and Annuity Corporation, the qualified assignment company is not an insurance company. Indeed, the best we can tell, neither United States Periodic Payment Assignment Company and Global Periodic Payment Assignment Company (assignment companies related to Milestone Consulting (by way of its holding company Seventh Amendment Holdings) are not insurance companies.
- The qualified assignment company deducts any applicable qualified assignment fee and then purchases an annuity to fund the future periodic payment obligation (Step 3 above)
One of the basic tenets of the Structured Settlement Watchdog is that consumers deserve the clearest path to accurate information about structured settlements.