Beyond Structured Settlements

NSSTA 2015 Annual Meeting

Continuing to advance a theme of "industry unity", which now appears to encompass some collaborative political lobbying as well as education, the National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) hosted its 2015 Annual Meeting April 22-24 in Washington, D.C.

Incoming NSSTA President Michael Goodman highlighted these developments during his introductory address when he listed among other recent NSSTA successes: 1) a strong relationship with the American Association for Justice (AAJ); 2) improved dialogue with the Society of Settlement Planners (SSP); 3) guest educational participation involving SSP and National Association of Settlement Purchasers (NASP) representatives; as well as 4) successful cooperation with NASP to enact revised structured settlement protection legislation in Illinois.

The new Illinois legislation provides an antidote for problems created by the Brenston case. Among other changes to the prior Illinois statute, the new legislation also includes provisions to: 1) restrict forum shopping; 2) require the seller of payment rights to appear in person at the court hearing (unless the court determines that good cause exists to excuse the payee from appearing); and 3) require disclosure of prior transfers.

Representatives of both NSSTA and NASP have expressed their intent to cooperate in pursuing similar legislative reforms in other states including Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Goodman also identified several goals for NSSTA during his term as President. These include: 1) modifying NSSTA's traditional "protect and preserve" message to inspire primary market growth; 2) moving beyond "interest rate selling"; 3) moving beyond a focus on factoring; 4) identifying and pursuing new markets for structured settlement annuities; 5) adding one or more new life company providers; 6) engaging new, younger structured settlement brokers; 7) providing a new and improved training initiative.

Goodman will be joined on the NSSTA Board by two newly-elected Directors: Jim Early and Geoff Kissel. They replace retiring Directors John Machir and Dan Goodmann. John McCulloch was re-elected to a new three year term of directorship. McCulloch was also honored as NSSTA's annual President's Award winner. Karen Meyers and Bill Wakelee were named recipients of NSSTA's annual Leadership Award.

NSSTA Executive Director Eric Vaughn updated members on the Structured Settlement Caucus which is co-chaired by Congressmen John Lewis and James Sensenbrenner and currently consists of 53 congressional members. The objectives of the Caucus include: 1) expanding the base of Congressional support for structured settlements; 2) educating new members of Congress about structured settlements; and 3) protecting and promoting structured settlements.

As an important auxiliary portion of its meeting, Vaughn and 125 NSSTA members "Took the Hill" to meet with Senators and Representatives. Their efforts received strong encouragement from Congressman Lewis who exhorted NSSTA members "to make some noise."

"Stand up! Speak up!" Lewis urged. "Structured settlements have always enjoyed strong bipartisan Congressional support. They are the right and necessary thing to do. They work by providing long term financial security for injury victims to live with dignity."

NSSTA and its Education Committee face a continuing challenge: how best to educate its members, who possess varying degrees of experience and who market to a diverse group of structured settlement producers and decision makers, to deliver high value services to their respective clients. NSSTA has addressed this challenge with multiple new initiatives:

• Structures 202 provides a comprehensive program of case management fundamentals and business development opportunities. Unlike Structures 101 (a prior NSSTA educational program for case managers), Structures 202 is also designed for structured settlement brokers who are new to the market and therefore includes an important, primarily plaintiff-oriented, business development component.
• Complementing and extending its Certified Structured Settlement Consultant (CSSC) Professional Certification Program, NSSTA has added a new Master's Certificate in Structured Settlement Consulting (MSSC). NSSTA recognized and honored the most recent graduates of both programs during its 2015 Annual Meeting.
• During its Fall 2014 Conference, NSSTA announced a new "NSSTA University" service whereby NSSTA will partner with any member to secure CE credits for member-sponsored educational seminars or insurance claims departments or law firms.
• In partnership with CLM Advisors, NSSTA's Marketing Committee has commissioned a three part survey project to provide its members with valuable marketing tools for discussions with the audiences surveyed. Part 1 (claims executives) and Part 2 (claims adjustors) have been completed. Part III will survey plaintiff attorneys.

In addition, from S2KM's perspective, NSSTA continues to upgrade its traditional educational conferences.

SPEAKERS AND TOPICS - NSSTA 2015 Annual Meeting

• Kevin Silo - Opening Remarks
• Congressman John Lewis - Keynote Speaker
• Michael Goodman - NSSTA Agenda and Objectives
• Sally Greenberg - Consumer & Legal Protections for Injury Victims
• Mike Montemurro and John Stanton - Internal Revenue Service Update
• Taylor Smith, Ronna Ruppelt, Robert Sampson - Delivering High Value Services to Claims Professionals
• Karen Meyers, Anne Marie VonBank, Cody Shively - Trigger Trusts
• Christi Fried, Paul Hansen, Phil Sanders - Trust Asset Allocation and Structured Settlements
• Stephen Harris, Timothy O'Driscoll and Peter Vodola - Judicial Education
• Susan Clark and Melissa Price - NSSTA Took the Hill
• Michael Miller, Earl Nesbitt, John McCulloch - Factoring Panel Discussions
• Dr. Quincy Krosby - Macro Economics and the Financial Markets
• Nancy Bond - Life Care Planning

For additional S2KM reporting about past NSSTA conferences, see the structured settlement wiki.

Spring 2012 Conferences

During the next four weeks, S2KM will attend and review three professional educational conferences addressing structured settlement and settlement planning issues:

• Richard B. Risk Jr. Settlement Planning Practicum
• National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA) Annual Meeting
• Society of Settlement Planners (SSP) Annual Meeting

Risk Practicum

A national authority on structured settlement law, Richard Risk has endowed a series of annual settlement planning "practicums" at his law school alma mater, The University of Tulsa College of Law. Risk believes the 2012 practicum, scheduled for April 13-14, will represent the first time any law school in the country has formally recognized settlement planning as a topic of legal education. Speakers: Joseph Tombs; Patrick Hindert; Mark Popolizio; Jeremy Babener; Jack Meligan; Carl Pierce.

NSSTA Annual Meeting

NSSTA's Annual Meeting, scheduled for April 25-27 in Washington, D.C., will feature a mixed agenda of business and political meetings; NSSTA "Takes the Hill" meetings with Members of Congress and senior Congressional Staffers; plus an educational program headlined by Senator Max Baucus, Congressman Richard Neal, NOLHGA Chairman Thomas Ronce and President Peter Gallanis, Mike Montemurro of the IRS, a Congressional Chiefs of Staff panel, plus various NSSTA leaders and property & casualty insurance representatives.

SSP Annual Meeting

SSP will host its Annual Meeting April 29-May 1 in Las Vegas. The SSP educational program will feature 27 speakers discussing strategies to improve and grow the settlement planning market. Some of the SSP presentation categories:

• Revitalizing and reinventing structured settlements
• New NAIC annuity regulations
• Insurance, investment and administrative options
• Tax developments, strategies and legislative proposals
• Medicare (MSA) and Medicaid (SNT) updates
• What ELNY means for settlement planners

In addition to these three 2012 conferences, S2KM previously attended and reviewed the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP) 2012 Annual Meeting. For S2KM's complete reporting about professional associations whose members participate in structured settlements and settlement planning, see the structured settlement wiki.

SSP and NSSTA 2010 Annual Meetings - 7

Tax laws and tax policy are critically important for structured settlements. Based upon interviews he conducted with structured settlement industry leaders, Jeremy Babener states in his recently published article about "Structured Settlements and Single-Claimant Qualified Settlement Funds":

"It seems roundly agreed that the ......structured settlement market owes its existence almost entirely to the tax subsidy."

With major tax reform predicted for 2011, both the SSP and NSSTA tax panels provided valuable and generally positive news and information plus new tax ideas for growing the structured settlement market. For a list of the SSP and NSSTA tax panel participants, see SSP and NSSTA - 6.

The most positive tax information was the declaration of support for structured settlements during the NSSTA meeting by key Congressmen including Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; Sander Levin, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; and David Camp, ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Congressman Camp provided the most concise tax-oriented legislative endorsement of structured settlements. Camp stated: "With tax reform, everything is on the table. But structured settlements are not on the table. Congress has a long history of support for structured settlements on a bi-partisan basis. Don't expect much debate over structured settlements."

The new tax ideas for growing the structured settlement market were highlighted by Babener in his precursor presentation to the SSP tax panel titled: "Justifying and Expanding the Structured Settlement Tax Subsidy". Among Babener's ideas for improving and growing the structured settlement market, he recommends changing the current tax subsidy into a tax credit. According to Babener, who outlines his proposal in an article published in Tax Notes titled "Expanding the Structured Settlement Tax Exclusion", the current tax subsidy provides no benefit for structured settlement recipients unless they pay taxes - which many of whom do not. Babener's article is available on his Tax Structuring website.

Both the SSP and NSSTA 2010 tax panels featured Michael Montemurro, Branch Chief, Office of Associate General Counsel of the IRS. SSP has featured Montemurro on two prior tax panels.

Both the SSP and NSSTA tax panels addressed many of the same issues:

• Single claimant 468B settlement funds;
• Physical vs. non-physical personal injuries;
• Non-qualified assignments - including structured attorney fees;

NSSTA's tax panel also discussed tax issues related to confidentiality agreements and factoring by assignment companies.

By contrast with NSSTA, SSP allotted more than two hours (compared with NSSTA's one hour) for its tax panel. In addition, SSP offered Babener's introductory public policy discussion plus 40 minutes of follow-up discussion. The added time allowed SSP to incorporate Michael Montemurro into a broader discussion which included practical advice (Dan Hindert discussing 468B QSFs), criticism of current tax laws (Professors Gregg Polsky and Brant Hellwig attacking tax deferrals for non-physical injuries and plaintiff attorneys fees) plus extended public policy discussions including secondary market issues.

Both SSP and NSSTA deserve congratulations for their 2010 structured settlement tax panels. SSP's tax panel (organized and moderated by Richard Risk) has become the new industry standard - surpassing what NSSTA formerly and regularly featured as its "Tax Posse". NSSTA's 2010 tax panel (organized and moderated by Michael Miller) re-established NSSTA as an important educational resource for structured settlement tax issues.

For prior S2KM reporting about SSP and NSSTA, see S2KM's structured settlement wiki.

SSP and NSSTA 2010 Annual Meetings - 6

This S2KM blog post is the first of two S2KM blog posts about the SSP and NSSTA 2010 tax panels and is also part of S2KM's blog series about the SSP and NSSTA 2010 annual meetings.

The SSP and NSSTA tax panels offered the industry's best-ever discussions about structured settlement tax issues. This S2KM post introduces the SSP and NSSTA tax panel participants. Subsequent S2KM blog posts will summarize the tax panel discussions and provide additional S2KM commentary. For prior S2KM reporting about the SSP and NSSTA, see S2KM's structured settlement wiki.

SSP's tax panel

• Richard Risk as organizer and moderator. One of the plaintiff attorneys in the Spencer v. Hartford class action and honored as an SSP "Life Member" during the SSP 2010 meeting.
• Michael Montemurro - Branch Chief, Office of Associate General Counsel of the IRS.
• Daniel Hindert - Trial attorney based in Salt Lake City. Co-author of "Structured Settlements and Periodic Payment Judgments" with Joseph Dehner and S2KM's Managing Director, Patrick Hindert. Co-author with Craig Ulman of a 2005 American Bar Association article for judges about structured settlement factoring. Author of a 2010 article about Section 468B Settlement Funds for the Utah Association for Justice.
• Gregg Polsky - Law professor formerly at Florida State University and now teaching at the University of North Carolina. Co-author with Brant Hellwig of a 2010 law review article titled "Taxing Structured Settlements" published in the January 2010 edition of the Boston College Law Review.
• Brant Hellwig - Law professor at the University of South Carolina
• Jeremy Babener - author during 2010 of several public policy articles about structured settlements. Babener's articles are available on his website Tax Structuring. S2KM's reviews of Babener's writing and interviews with Babener are featured on S2KM's structured settlement public policy wiki. In addition to participating on the SSP tax panel, Babener spoke separately at the SSP meeting about "Justifying and Expanding the Structured Settlement Tax Subsidy".

NSSTA's tax panel

• Michael Miller as organizer and moderator. Former co-chairman of NSSTA's legal committee. Also summarized the Spencer v. Hartford settlement at the NSSTA meeting.
• Michael Montemurro - Branch Chief, Office of Associate General Counsel of the IRS.
• Kirk Van Brunt - a member of the NSSTA legal committee and a structured settlement taxation subject matter expert.