For the past three years North Carolina Structured Settlement Recipients have been unable to sell the rights to their structured settlement payments because of a change in the North Carolina Structured Settlement Protection Act. Throughout these years many annuitants came to us with tragic circumstances where we normally would be able to help them create liquidity by cashing out their structured settlement, but because of this new law we were unable to help them.
Below is the section of the North Carolina Structured Settlement Protection Act which has not allowed most North Carolina structured settlement recipients to sell their payments since enacted:
"The discount rate used in determining the net amount payable to the payee, as provided in subdivision (2) of this section, does not exceed an annual percentage rate of prime plus five percentage points calculated as if the net amount payable to the payee, as provided in sub-subdivision (2)f. of this section, was the principal of a consumer loan made by the transferee to the payee, and if the structured settlement payments to be transferred to the transferee were the payee's payments of principal plus interest on such loan. For purposes of this subdivision, the prime rate shall be as reported by the Federal Reserve Statistical Release H.15 on the first Monday of the month in which the transfer agreement is signed by both the payee and the transferee, except when the transfer agreement is signed prior to the first Monday of that month then the prime rate shall be as reported by the Federal Reserve Statistical Release H.15 on the first Monday of the preceding month;"
This section states that no company may purchase a structured settlement in the State of North Carolina unless the discount rate used on the transaction does not exceed prime plus five percent. At this moment the prime rate is approximately 3.5% which means the discount rate used in determining the amount payable to the annuitant cannot exceed 8.5%. Settlement Quotes has recently acquired rates which will allow us to complete transactions at rates lower than 8.5% on a consistent basis. At this time there is no other company in the industry that can complete transactions in the State of North Carolina on a consistent basis.
Over the past few months Settlement Quotes has been able to complete a few transactions in this state, but we had to turn away many annuitants because we could not obtain a rate less than 8.5%. In order to obtain such a rate we needed the following:
- long payment stream
- high present value
Over the past several weeks we have been working hard to secure better rates. With our improved rates the majority of North Carolina structured settlement recipients will have the option to cash out their structured settlement.