Is Structured Settlement Annuity Investing A Good Deal
As interest rates remain low, investors - especially retirees - struggle to find yield wherever they can. Unfortunately, though, the necessity of earning a required return to fund financial goals becomes the mother of invention for a wide range of investment strategies, both legitimate and fraudulent. A recent offering of rising popularity is structured settlement annuity investing, often offering "no risk" rates of return in the 4% to 7% range. In general, the opportunity for "high yield" (at least relative to today's interest rates) and "no risk" is a red flag warning. But the reality is that with structured settlement annuity investing, the higher returns are legitimately low risk; the appealing return relative to other low-risk fixed income investments is not due to increased risk, but instead due to very poor liquidity. Which means such investment offerings can potentially be a way to generate higher returns, not through a risk premium, but a liquidity premium. But the caveat, however, is that the investments are so illiquid and the cash flows so irregular, they probably should at best only ever be considered for a very small portion of a client's portfolio anyway.
The inspiration for today's blog post has been a series of inquiries I've received from other planners over the past month, whose clients are being solicited to invest in structured settlement annuities, but have been understandably wary of the purported "high fixed return with low risk" offering. After all, most returns that seem "too good to be true" for their risk are in fact too good to be true, and entail higher risk than what is first apparent. Yet due to the unique way that structured settlement annuities work, the reality is that higher yields are not actually a high risk premium, but a low-risk low liquidity premium.
To understand why, it may be helpful to review exactly what a structured settlement is. A structured settlement arises most commonly when a plaintiff wins a lawsuit - for instance, due to injury as a result of medical malpractice - and the payment for damages is awarded as a series of payments over a period of time. This is often done to coincide with certain key ages - for instance, the structured settlement for an injured child might be timed to have the bulk of the payments made after the child turns 21, while the structured settlement of an injured 45-year-old adult might include annual payments for the next 20 years and then a lump sum at age 65. Each situation is unique. However, to avoid the financial risks involved by having the plaintiff waiting on the defendent to make payments over the span of many years or decades, the defendent (or the defendent's professional liability insurance company) often purchases an annuity from a quality insurance company to make the obligatory payments to the plaintiff, allowing the defendent to resolve his/her end of the settlement with a single lump sum payment.
As interest rates remain low, investors - especially retirees - struggle to find yield wherever they can. Unfortunately, though, the necessity of earning a required return to fund financial goals becomes the mother of invention for a wide range of investment strategies, both legitimate and fraudulent. A recent offering of rising popularity is structured settlement annuity investing, often offering "no risk" rates of return in the 4% to 7% range. In general, the opportunity for "high yield" (at least relative to today's interest rates) and "no risk" is a red flag warning. But the reality is that with structured settlement annuity investing, the higher returns are legitimately low risk; the appealing return relative to other low-risk fixed income investments is not due to increased risk, but instead due to very poor liquidity. Which means such investment offerings can potentially be a way to generate higher returns, not through a risk premium, but a liquidity premium. But the caveat, however, is that the investments are so illiquid and the cash flows so irregular, they probably should at best only ever be considered for a very small portion of a client's portfolio anyway.
The inspiration for today's blog post has been a series of inquiries I've received from other planners over the past month, whose clients are being solicited to invest in structured settlement annuities, but have been understandably wary of the purported "high fixed return with low risk" offering. After all, most returns that seem "too good to be true" for their risk are in fact too good to be true, and entail higher risk than what is first apparent. Yet due to the unique way that structured settlement annuities work, the reality is that higher yields are not actually a high risk premium, but a low-risk low liquidity premium.
To understand why, it may be helpful to review exactly what a structured settlement is. A structured settlement arises most commonly when a plaintiff wins a lawsuit - for instance, due to injury as a result of medical malpractice - and the payment for damages is awarded as a series of payments over a period of time. This is often done to coincide with certain key ages - for instance, the structured settlement for an injured child might be timed to have the bulk of the payments made after the child turns 21, while the structured settlement of an injured 45-year-old adult might include annual payments for the next 20 years and then a lump sum at age 65. Each situation is unique. However, to avoid the financial risks involved by having the plaintiff waiting on the defendent to make payments over the span of many years or decades, the defendent (or the defendent's professional liability insurance company) often purchases an annuity from a quality insurance company to make the obligatory payments to the plaintiff, allowing the defendent to resolve his/her end of the settlement with a single lump sum payment.
