Looking to Sell Structured Settlement? Know the Benefits and Legal Protections

Structured settlements are compensations that are declared to a plaintiff for his losses or injuries. These compensations are to be paid by the defendant who is found guilty. Structured settlements are payments made to the plaintiff by the defendant in smaller divisions of amount over a pre determined period of time. Before the advent of annuity settlements as a type to settlement, the defendants used to suffer a lot as they had to cook up the lump sum amount of compensation in one shot. Even if the defendant is a large company, taking out huge amounts from its funds to pay the settlement would definitely be unfavorable to its business. Even the plaintiff is burdened with the need for an efficient and well managed financial plan. There are some instances of plaintiff going on a spending spree with there lump cash settlement money and ending up in situation worse than before. Hence structured settlement was evolved to overcome the draw backs of a one time cash settlement.

With the advantages of structured settlements over taking its disadvantages, it has become customary that most of such cases end in a structured settlement. In fact, if you need a lump sum settlement, you will have convince to the judge that you have some very important huge expenses like medical bills, career shift, children's education etc. This is so because structured settlement has been found to be a friend to all. In the case of structured settlement, you may any day sell your structured settlement and convert into a lump sum but you may not convert a lump sum into a structured settlement.

As mentioned before structured settlements favor all the parties involved in the case. First of all the plaintiff has several advantages of structured settlements over a lump sum settlement as discussed above. When it comes to the defendant, it is easier to pay in installments rather than a lump sum that would surely unsettle their financial stability. It also decreases the administrative and legal expenses of the defendant. It is also liked by the court as it reduces the time taken for the trail. To sum it up, structured settlements are helpful to all the parties involved when compared to lump sum settlements. But there are also some cases where these structured settlements do not apply and the plaintiff needs a lump sum. Hence the decision of which type of settlement to opt for must be taken after getting a first hand knowledge of how each type of settlement works.