From Structured Settlement Recipients
Shirley Adams (Yorba Linda, CA)
Mother of a child with brain damage
In 1973, Shirley Adams of Memphis, Tennessee gave birth to a daughter, Tiffany, who was born with brain damage. Ms. Adams maintained this damage was the result of medical malpractice by the hospital.
In 1980, Shirley and her husband received a settlement of $250,000. Despite the attorney’s advice to invest this money prudently, Shirley says her husband put the money into his own construction company.
By the mid-1980s, the company was bankrupt and the money to care for Tiffany was gone. In 1993, Shirley and her husband divorced. He moved to Eastern Europe and stopped paying child support.
But the story does not end there. In 1987, Tiffany’s wheelchair malfunctioned, causing it to roll forward and throwing her face first into the street.
Tiffany suffered severe facial injuries. This time, Ms. Adams insisted that the settlement from the wheelchair manufacturer be in the form of a structured settlement.
Today, Ms. Adams is convinced of the benefit structured settlements have brought to her life. “Taking care of Tiffany is a full-time job and requires constant attention, not to mention the financial need,” she says, “My structured settlement protects Tiffany from other people completely taking advantage of her for the whole amount of the settlement.”
William Wayne Jeske (Corinth, New York)
Victim in a products liability case
Excerpts from a letter from Mr. Jeske to one of the people who represented him after his 2001 accident: “Now that the dust has somewhat settled from a long legal battle, I feel very good about the decision I made to invest in a structured settlement annuity package.
“I will admit that I was skeptical at first, but the more I considered the ‘structured settlement,’ the more it made damn good sense. At this point in time good sense was an obvious and critical ingredient to making a sound financial decision. Especially, being aware that I was under much mental, physical, emotional, and now financial pressure; I knew that I was very vulnerable to the very real world.
In this very complicated world today it is very easy to fall prey to poor or crooked financial advisors, stock brokers, hidden laws, fluctuations in all types of financial markets and economies around the world, corporate manipulation and corruption (like Enron for example), not to mention the effects of terrorism.
I finally reached a point where I just imagined monthly tax free payments simply sent to me for the rest of my life, guaranteed.
“At that point I realized all at once that I didn’t have to become an overnight business and financial expert with one chance to get it right with little or no experience. And not forgetting that I am personally injured, I also realized at that point that I could secure and guarantee the payments for my loved ones or family in the event something happened to me.
And as far as investments go, I also realized that I could still invest portions of my monthly payments, in increments over time, in a much more calculated, controlled, and comfortable way. This would be the best of both worlds for us. I hope that this form of logic can somehow be conveyed to others that are and will be in that very difficult and financially dangerous place that I was once in.”
* All of the above statements are courtesy of the National Structured Settlement Trade Association and are not an endorsement of any particular structured settlement firm.
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