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True Expertise is Everything

The sports world is breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the National Football League has resolved its issues with its professional referees’ union. Even non-fans are happy to have this over with because tapes and replays of the latest gruesome gaffes have dominated the airwaves and internet for weeks.

What happened? How could the NFL have misjudged the situation so badly? Well, it’s actually an easy mistake to make when dealing with professionals who work in highly specialized fields. To the untrained eye, officiating looks pretty simple: read rule in book; make call on field. What on earth were they paying those zebras so much money for?

Wow, talk about pulling back a bloody stump. Things got so bad that the NFL had to retreat from its lockout only three weeks into the regular season. Now the veterans are back in place, quietly keeping an eye on things, protecting the players and the very game itself.

I actually understand this mistake. I see people make the very same mistake with structured settlements.

What’s the mistake? The mistake is failing to appreciate the difference between a trained full-time professional and some person just wearing the same suit. If officiating NFL games were that easy, the nice folks who work at Foot Locker would do just fine. As we have just seen: it isn’t and they couldn’t.

Same deal in structured settlements. There was a time back when structures were new, that all claims professionals, attorneys, and judges understood that structures offered exciting new value but they also entailed strict technical requirements. These technical requirements were so detailed and intricate that a new profession was born: Structured Settlement Consultant. It was understood that no deal should be finalized until such a professional had reviewed the actual documents to be signed.

In some ways, we might be victims of our own success. This methodology worked so well that structures have become an accepted and routine way to resolve personal injury claims. Indeed, there is an accepted format in releases to cover the structure terms and related documents carry the phrase “Uniform” or “Standard” across the top.

These would appear to be good old reliable “boilerplate” documents…except who exactly drafted them? Who drafted them originally, when was the last time a qualified professional reviewed them, and has anyone fiddled with them since? At our firm we not only review every document, we require two sets of eyes and that’s just for the structure parts. Most documents are fine but you would not believe what we find in the ones that are not.

Which leads me back to the “mistake”. Lately, a certain casual air has drifted into some negotiations. Rather than rely on their own chosen professional, some parties feel it is okay to just let “the other guy’s professional” handle it.

[#%@^&*(@!!] That is the sign of blinding white lights going off in my head. When in the world has it EVER been acceptable in an adversarial proceeding to rely on the “other guy’s professional”? You would not rely on the “other guy’s lawyer”, you would not rely on the “other guy’s economic expert”, so why in the world would you rely on the “other guy’s structured settlement expert”?

I don’t think this mistake is deliberate, we have simply undergone generational turnover and many of today’s professionals simply don’t know about or appreciate the technical underpinnings which make a true structured settlement work.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to quietly tweak structure language in a release to gain a risk or financial advantage for your client and blow it by opposing counsel. Why? Because attorneys are not trained in the technical requirements of structured settlements.

Similarly, you can alter an assignment agreement and just type “UNIFORM” at the top of the page and everyone thinks the document must be “industry standard”. Nope. There are plenty of terms which, to an amateur, seem innocuous but which to a professional would be utterly unacceptable.(1)

I have earned some of my very best clients by initially helping them untangle some hideous mess that some other structured settlement “professional” got them into. You could almost say that a practice of relying on “the other guy’s” structured settlement expert is good for my business. But it’s really not. You don’t want the kind of problems that I have helped some clients claw their way back out of.

A properly crafted structured settlement provides tax-free guaranteed benefits to the claimant and absolute closure and protection to the defense. In order to ensure these parties are receiving the benefits they negotiated for, they must rely on the advice and expertise of a skilled professional structured settlement broker. One who they hired to represent their interests.

There really is such a thing as true expertise, and the kind I provide is actually free. Want to take a risk on some “other guy’s professional” or work with a full-time, deeply experienced professional? In my mind, this decision is not even…a “coin toss”.

Call Frank C. Kilcoyne CSSC at 800-544-5533, I am here to help.

(1) For a time there was even one fellow who marketed utterly phony structures. His documents were a real piece of work, and yet he sold a lot of them to people who didn’t understand the difference.