Selling structured settlement payments: what is the process?

Your bills are piling up and you don’t know where the money is going to come from. You receive money from the settlement, but it is not enough each month to cover your family’s needs. You decide now is the time to get a lump sum of cash for your future structured settlement payments. Now what? Learning about the process of selling your structured settlement will position you in the best possible way to maximize your offers.

The first step in the process is to determine if selling your structured settlement is the best solution for your situation. Have you exhausted the more traditional sources of raising cash? If your answer is yes, the next step is to start receiving offers.

Next, you need to gather the important information about your structured settlement. This will be necessary to receive offers. The most important information is the name of the insurance company, the amount of each payment you are due, and the date of each payment. This information is necessary for the calculation that each company will carry out to offer you an offer. It’s also helpful to start collecting your actual structured settlement agreement from the court settlement, the actual insurance contract from the insurance company, and the benefit letter. The benefit letter will list in detail each payment you are due and on what date it will be paid.

There are actually two main ways to find the factoring companies that will buy your payments. The first is to look for the TV commercials that seem to appear constantly on some of the major cable news channels. These are definitely the big players in the business of buying structured settlements. One thing to remember is that those TV commercials can be expensive. You have to ask yourself how that might affect the offers they are willing to make. The other important resource is, of course, the Internet. Doing a quick Google search will show you how large a number of companies there are. The Internet is a lower cost method for factoring companies to reach potential customers who want to sell their payments. It is also an efficient and effective way to quickly get multiple offers for clearance. The lower overhead of web-based companies should allow them to be more competitive with their offerings.

Once you find an acceptable offer, that company will usually send you an initial application along with a list of required documents. Again, you will need to provide your settlement agreement, benefit letter, a copy of your annuity contract, two photo IDs, possibly a qualified assignment form, and a minor claim order if you were a minor when the settlement occurred. The faster you can change this information, the faster the process from start to finish.

The company buying your settlement will run a background check for any pending liens or judgments that may restrict your ability to sell. Once your information is reviewed and found complete, the factoring company will send you the closing documents to sell your structured settlement. Once the closing documents are received and reviewed, the company buying your settlement now will schedule a short date to complete the transfer. Each state regulates the sale of structured settlement payments. It is necessary in each transaction that a judge review the transaction and approve it. This is for your protection and that of the company purchasing the payments.

Once the court approves the transfer, a copy of the order is sent to the insurance company. Once the insurance company acknowledges the transfer of the settlement payment, the company that purchases your structured settlement payment will send your money by wire or mail. This is just a brief overview of the process, but it should be enough to get you off to a good start.