Skull Pilot
Diamond Member
- Nov 17, 2007
- 45,446
- 6,163
- 1,830
Is a guarantee a bad thing?
When I was in the financial adviser biz years ago my pat answer to that question was "A guaranteed return is a guaranteed loss because if someone is guaranteeing you a 7% return, you know they're getting more than 7%"
But today, I'm not so sure if a guarantee is such a bad thing. Maybe it's because I'm a little older and predictability in my finances makes it easier to plan my future.
I have recently been looking into structured settlement transfers as part of my overall strategy. You may have seen the commercials like "I have an annuity but I need cash now". Well an annuity or a pay out over time is a structured settlement. Now in general structured settlements are a guaranteed financial product but some people are willing to give up a portion of their future payments to receive a lump sum payout of their structured settlement or annuity.
Until now these settlement transfers were not readily available to the general public and a guarantee of 6-9% interest in today's market is pretty good when money market and CDs, the traditional safe havens, are paying out 1% or less in some cases a 6-9% return looks very attractive indeed.
You can access these though financial advisory firms and the process is really quite simple. You receive a list of available transfers with investments ranging from 20K to 150K or more with varying time frames. Generally the longer the time frame the higher the initial investment and the higher the interest rate.
I was looking at a list and as an example I'll use one offered by the MA state lottery.
An investment of a little over 140K and a 10 year time frame will guarantee a pay out of 50K a year for 6 years. Or a guarantee of about 7.5%
There are some settlements for as little as a 40K investment with a much shorter time frame.
I haven't committed to one of these yet but I am pretty sure these settlement transfers will be a part of my overall plan.
Thoughts?
When I was in the financial adviser biz years ago my pat answer to that question was "A guaranteed return is a guaranteed loss because if someone is guaranteeing you a 7% return, you know they're getting more than 7%"
But today, I'm not so sure if a guarantee is such a bad thing. Maybe it's because I'm a little older and predictability in my finances makes it easier to plan my future.
I have recently been looking into structured settlement transfers as part of my overall strategy. You may have seen the commercials like "I have an annuity but I need cash now". Well an annuity or a pay out over time is a structured settlement. Now in general structured settlements are a guaranteed financial product but some people are willing to give up a portion of their future payments to receive a lump sum payout of their structured settlement or annuity.
Until now these settlement transfers were not readily available to the general public and a guarantee of 6-9% interest in today's market is pretty good when money market and CDs, the traditional safe havens, are paying out 1% or less in some cases a 6-9% return looks very attractive indeed.
You can access these though financial advisory firms and the process is really quite simple. You receive a list of available transfers with investments ranging from 20K to 150K or more with varying time frames. Generally the longer the time frame the higher the initial investment and the higher the interest rate.
I was looking at a list and as an example I'll use one offered by the MA state lottery.
An investment of a little over 140K and a 10 year time frame will guarantee a pay out of 50K a year for 6 years. Or a guarantee of about 7.5%
There are some settlements for as little as a 40K investment with a much shorter time frame.
I haven't committed to one of these yet but I am pretty sure these settlement transfers will be a part of my overall plan.
Thoughts?
Last edited: