Questions You Don’t Want Your Client Asking After the Defendant Has Been Released

1. “It seemed like a lot of money at the time, but I’ve already spent it. I just heard about something that would have protected me called a structured settlement, with lifetime guaranteed payments. Why didn’t you recommend a structured settlement?”

2. “The defense never told us how much they were spending on my structured settlement. Now I find out it was much less than what you estimated. Don’t you owe me a refund on your attorney fee?”

3. “Do you mean we could still be receiving Medicaid benefits for our child, even though we received a settlement, if we had just known about a supplemental needs trust? We didn’t know we would be losing Medicaid when we accepted the cash settlement. We could have had both.”

4. “I found out my estate might not have been subject to estate taxes when I die if only my structured settlement had been handled differently. Why did we let this happen?”

5. “Someone told me the annuity company would have given us higher monthly income for life if it had known about my health history. Why didn’t the structured settlement consultant tell them?”

6. “My tax advisor tells me I might not be paying taxes on punitive damages if my settlement documents had been stated differently. The IRS allocated half of each payment to punitive damages. Didn’t you know this would happen?”

7. “I heard that the defendant’s insurance company received a kickback from the money spent on my structured settlement annuity. If I had known they were going to get a rebate, I would have held out for a higher settlement amount. They didn’t spend what they promised for my benefits, did they? How did you let this happen?”

8. “Do you mean we could have had our own structured settlement consultant, working for us at no extra expense, instead of being forced to use their broker? Didn’t he have a conflict of interest? Was he paying a kickback to the casualty insurance company? We had our own expert for everything else. Why didn’t we have our own expert for the biggest financial transaction of my life?”

We fervently believe in the right of the plaintiff to take advantage of the significant tax benefits that Congress intended physical injury victims to have, without being forced to allow its structured settlement broker, who has a conflict of interest, to handle the transaction. We work with plaintiff attorneys in the best interest of their clients.