Times When Selling an Annuity is the only Choice

A structured annuity is a financial award to a person that is then paid incrementally over the course of years or decades, with small payments for the duration. They are carefully set up, attempting to account for any financial needs of the person getting their annuity. Many people do quite well with their annuity and see no reason to get cash for settlements. However, there are others that are not able to manage as intended due to a variety of external and internal factors that are unique to the individual. Some outsiders, having no relatable experience with such a situation or a close relationship with someone who had, with make the sweeping generalization that anyone who wants to sell an annuity just wants to go buy a house and a car and they are mad at someone forcing them to be responsible. The reality behind this patronizing statement is that there are many reasons to sell structured settlement payments, and some of those reasons are, of course, not valid or well considered. However, sometimes the opposite is true. Here are three excellent and honorable reasons to sell a structured settlement for cash.

1. Illness in the Family: If a man receives a call from his mother at nine am to be informed by her that she has pancreatic cancer, by five after, he will be considering selling the settlement. He will be considering quitting his job to move back to the state with his her, at least for a while, with the reasoning that the money belongs to him, and if he can’t use it to help his mother when she could be dying, then it has little value anyway.
2. Permanent Change to Their Own Health Status: An individual who won millions in the lottery can likely live very comfortably with their income from employment combined with their annuity. However, if illness or injury prevents that person working, the contemplation of financial commitments that were easy before makes selling lottery payments seem logical.
3. Unplanned Pregnancy: A woman with a structured annuity becomes pregnant with someone she barely knows. She decides that she wants to keep the baby but not the man, nor does she want the well-being of her child to be dependent on child support checks from a person she cannot predict yet. She decides, as a result, to get cash for settlements.

Extreme situations and major, life-changing events often force people to make decisions they do not want to make. That’s just life, and certainly not the only examples of hard times making a choice to get cash for settlements the only responsible path.