Fathers Day, The President gets it right

I was struck yesterday as I watched President Obama take a full afternoon, something you rarely see the President of the United States ever do, and dedicate it to an event designed to promote the importance of fatherhood in our society. I totally applaud his passion regarding this issue and the importance of visible leadership, reminding generations of men of the both the responsibility and joy of fatherhood.

The NY Times has a good recap of it and I encourage you to read it, even if you are on the other side of the partisan divide.

The Associated Press has an even more detailed piece that you can read here.

The reason I bring this up is I am touched, and totally in sync with our President on this issue, despite my other glaring differences with him on other policy, as it mirrors my own passion for the importance of fatherhood in our society. Like the President, my passion on this is driven by the absence of my own father for a good chunk of my life, in my case due to his death when I was 12 from melanoma when he was only 41 years old.

Until my father died, and his illness was mercifully short although it seemed like ages at that time in my life, I lived an almost ideal childhood in a little village in Western, NY that I like to dub "the town that time forgot". It was very much a throw back to a simpler time, that despite the flaws of that era and humanity, created a safe, supportive and stable place for a boy to grow up.

While the President did a superb job of discussing the role of fathers to be a part of their children's lives, what struck me most was his description of the "hole that can not be filled" by even the most devoted mother or grandparents, once that father is gone. I don't speak about it often, but there is no question that hole is there for all of us that had absent fathers and as I've told people before, many a successful man has been made due to the fire inside us to please that absent father of ours through our efforts in life after they left us.

I was immensely fortunate to have had outstanding men that helped to fill that gap through coaching, mentoring and guidance. My grandfather, track coaches, father in laws, college professors, old time lawyers and insurance professionals, my pastors and elders at various churchs and others all took time, effort and concern to smooth out my rough edges and inspire me to become something bigger then I saw in myself.

Which brings me to my point, which is how we evolve as men from that young man who was so wonderfully assisted by a score of surrogate fathers and mentors over the years as I was, to the man that I am now that woke up one day and realized that but for one, all of my mentors, coaches, professors and leaders have passed away. There is this lonely void that I once again feel as one by one these decent, honorable and generally unrecognized and unremarkable men in the eyes of the world slip away.

These were men who had families, children, commitments and then decided to do even more and involve themselves in coaching, their church, professional associations and informal mentoring to reach out and help young men who also had "that hole in their heart that couldn't be filled." They went above and beyond simply showing up, but committed themselves to helping others in ways they probably couldn't comprehend until years later.

At some point we men need to do as the President is doing and use the platforms that we have at our disposal to not only tell our own story to some degree, but provide helpful assistance and models to young men, young fathers and others who need that assurance that they to can be bigger then they may dream they are capable of. I personally have found that not only do we help those young men immeasurably, but in my case it fills that hole that never goes away to connect into the lives of young men and women and assist them in their careers, lives and aspirations. It doesn't have to be anything grandiose or spectacular and you don't have to be perfect to start, you just need to look around and sense who is struggling a bit and offer what you have to help guide them forward and let them know they aren't quite so alone in the journey.

I don't speak about it often but I was recognized by the Boys and Girls of Scottsdale as the recipient of their Man of the Year last year as a result of the 20 years spent coaching and mentoring in the various branches around the city. It was one of the few times in my life where I was speechless, not due to lack of words but as a result of the tears and loss of composure when I attempted to share my thoughts. What flooded into my mind was all the men who had coached and mentored me, their impact on my life and the realization that because of their example they were as much a part of what I had done for 20 years as I was, and I could hardly talk about it then or type it now.

We all have choices we make as fathers and I would humbly suggest the following:

If your father was absent, make a conscious choice to be there for your son's and daughters regardless of your relationship with their mother. Elevate yourself to the greatest privilege we get to experience in life which is that of being an active, involved, caring father.

Attend your children's games, recitals, plays and competitions with out fail. Nothing hurts worse then looking up in the stands and seeing an empty spot where your father could be sitting.

If you are now at an age where you are a "seasoned pro" in your profession or community, take a look around your church, synagogue, office, law firm, etc, and see if there is a young man or woman that could benefit from your friendship and support.

It is often times a very lonely world and it is the role of fathers in our society to help make it a little less lonely and scary for others.

Good job Mr. President, I'm sure your event helped a lot of young men and women. Enjoy your Fathers Day.

Commission sharing agreement an example of Huzpah

In my day to day work i'm always confronted with commission sharing arrangements as it is now common practice for both sides of a settlement to have their own settlement brokers.

Most of these take the form of your basic 50/50 split, outline who does the paperwork, how the commission are paid to the general agent, etc. Nothing elaborate, nothing over reaching just a simple transaction sheet for that particular event and for the annuity contract being handled by the defense and plaintiff brokers.

However, yesterday I had one forwarded to me by an associate i'm working with, in which the defense broker, who has never met the client, plaintiff attorney or left his office 1100 miles away from where the settlement is occurring decided that simply getting 50% of the annuity commission wasn't enough. No, they included the following:

1. 50% of any structure written on the trial lawyer if he decides to structure his fee.

2. 50% of any 468B trust income, even though they are neither licensed to sell securities, have no relationship with the trust or trust company or have performed no duties.

3. 50% of any life insurance or non-structured annuity product written on the plaintiff, lawyer or any family members of the plaintiff.

It goes on and on, but you get the idea. Basically they want 50% of anything and everything to do with the case, even though they have no client relationship with any of the parties, are not even insurance licensed in the state in which the case is settling, are not securities licensed and have no relationship with anyone other then the casualty company that inserted them into the case at the last moment once it was clear a structure was going to be involved.

Being a fair minded guy, I decided along with my associate to insert a second clause that said the broker agrees on his part to give us 50% of all of the income he realizes from his casualty client, whom I have never met nor have a business relationship with.

I have yet to hear back from him directly but did get a stripped down split deal agreed too.

Seriously, how desperate are some brokers at this point to piggy back off the efforts of others that they feel they have the ability to reach into every level of every transaction and share in the compensation? How about they try developing some expertise and products that other people might want instead of asking for compensation they aren't even legally licensed or appointed to receive.

Structured legal fees, too good of a deal? Some think so.

In this week's edition of Speaking of Settlements I am joined by noted tax law expert, Attorney Rob Wood of the firm Wood & Porter. I asked Rob to come in and discuss a recent article by two university professors who have decided to create an intellectual argument that structured legal fees are "too good of a deal" for trial lawyers.

They published in Tax Notes just last week on June 2, 2009 a critique of the reasoning  in the long settled Child's case, indicating that the trial lawyers have gotten too good of a deal and that in the interest of creating a more fair tax burden that this ability to structure income over time should be curtailed.

As you'll hear in this broadcast, the actual risk of a legislative reversal of Child's is pretty low, but the fact that there are academics out there looking at this as an equity issue in taxation indicates that we need to be both vigilant in making the case for the fairness of structured legal fees, but also promote them more heavily as the great deal that they are.

$300 Million Mass Turnpike lawsuit a major success for 468B trusts

In what will eventually be a watershed event in how multi-litigant cases are pursued by trial lawyers nationally, the recently filed lawsuit against the Massachusetts Turnpike for $300 million is the largest single case where the 468B Trust has been used on the front end of a case.

Why this is important and relevant to those of us in the settlement profession, is that this novel application of the 468B has now been successfully applied as a case management and client recruitment tool by a major group of attorneys, as opposed to filing a class action.

You can learn more about the case and even check out the filed trust, it's techniques and how members join the trust as opposed to becoming an individual class member by going to www.tollequitytrust.com.

I'm obviously proud of this as I am one of the originators of the concept, founded on the belief that a trust at the front end of litigation streamlines the management of the case by the attorney, provides complete court supervision and transparency and protects the interests of all parties who may eventually see a recovery in this or any other case.

Go to the site, check out how this has been used and be sure to tune into the Legal Broadcast Network later this week to hear from the team of attorney's using this novel application of the 468B trust to sign up clients, proceed with their law suit and ultimately create a transparent, fair and client friendly distribution of any eventual recovery.

Speaking of Settlements, The shrinking structured settlement market

In this weeks edition of Speaking of Settlements, Mark Wahlstrom discusses the two part blog  post on the topic of the incredible shrinking structured settlement market and what  brokers and others  involved in the structured settlement and settlement planning professions can do to reverse this steady decline.

The need for additional life insurance markets, settlement planners and innovative thinking has never been greater. and the hanging on of the old guard to the practices and methods that have brought us to this state of affairs, threatens the future viability of the profession.

Check out this weeks edition of Speaking of  Settlements with Mark Wahlstrom, The President of Wahlstrom and Associates.

Back to the future in Structured Settlements. Broker Innovation.

With apologies to Marty and Doc Brown, I've dragged the theme of Back to the Future to go into part two of my conversation on what is happening in the incredible shrinking structured settlement industry.

If the email and phone calls are any indication, I obviously touched a nerve in the settlement profession as regards the enormous shrinkage in capacity and life markets that fund both qualified and non-qualified annuity business. What i'd like to do with part two is clarify a few key points as to where the responsibility lies going forward to not only grow our business, but at this key juncture, essentially save our profession from marginalization in the financial community.

First, let me make clear that while I'm an equal opportunity basher when it comes to the two professional associations, NSSTA and SSP, I think most brokers expect far too much from each of these organizations and have unrealistic expectations about what they can accomplish to correct the current state of affairs. These associations both work on limited budgets and have limited membership relative to groups such at ACLI, The American College, Million Dollar Round Table and the Financial Planning Association. Lets look at some basic truths about each entity before we look to them to save the industry or find new markets:

1. NSSTA does a premier job of building allies in both Washington DC and in state houses around the country on a limited budget and with relatively minor assistance from members. As the recent meeting in Washington DC showed, NSSTA can roll out some heavy weight Congressman and Senators who both understand, support and promote our industry's mission of assisting personal injury victims in properly planning their awards and keeping their funds safe. Eric Vaughn does a superb job and has done it for years.

2. NSSTA also does an admirable job on PR and marketing given a minor budget and limited resources to get out the word about our profession. As a member of the marketing committee the last few years I can attest to the hard work and creativity with a limited budget that Peter Arnold works with to accomplish what he does.

3. SSP has developed a legitimate professional certification for settlement planners and a serious curriculum that elevates the settlement planning profession, and after a rough start, has evolved into a more moderate group with serious goals of promoting planning for injury victims. They have also done a very good job of building bridges to affiliated professions that strengthen the base of support for our core products and services, something NSSTA could learn from.

However, all that said, if you just go from the track record of premium being stagnant or declining over the last 8 to 10 years, coupled with the documented shrinking and retreat of life markets and lack of new entrants or products it is clear that if the measure of the success of NSSTA and SSP is the growth and expansion of our profession and markets, they have failed rather spectacularly.

Yet, the big question I ask now is whether this a fair measure of the roles of NSSTA and SSP? Does the responsibility of finding new markets, developing new products and expanding our business fall on the associations or does the fault lie in the mirror we all look into as brokers, agents and general agents?

I would suggest that the roles of NSSTA and SSP should properly be as follows:

1. Protect and maintain the status and integrity of section 130 and 104. However, this does not mean needlessly going after every perceived threat with a cannon and a phalanx of lawyers but carefully picking battles we can win. I would argue the factoring battle is largely over and we are cleaning up the scraps and keeping the more outrageous players in check at this point. I further propose that we could probably benefit from some detente between the responsible leadership of the factoring world and the settlement profession.

2. Continue to market the positive aspects and attributes of our core products through online marketing and viral marketing to our end consumers. 99% of what average people ever learn about a structured settlement is probably found through Google searches on the topic. As I've said many times, unless the profession stakes out the high ground and consistently puts out relevant content on our products, we deserve to be overwhelmed by factoring companies, structured settlement trust providers and others financial planners that sell against our product.

3. Strengthen the professional education and professional standards of behavior as to how to properly apply our product and sell it in an ethical and honorable fashion. These standards have to allow us to start calling out the bad apples in our midst who refuse to work cooperatively on either side of the transaction, needless threaten settlement negotiations and drag life companies and clients into our commission battles. Expulsion from the trade associations can be a powerful tool for un-ethical behavior such as rebating to trial lawyers or threatening to hold documents and create constructive reciept. As it stands right now we have no teeth in dealing with this.

4. The professional associations need to stay broker neutral as to how they promote the interests of our profession and instead promote their respective agenda's based on the merits of their products, services and value to the end consumer, be that a casualty claims department, self insured or the trial lawyer and his client.

You will notice I've not mentioned product development and market expansion. The reason why is simple:

" I believe it is the role and responsibility of the brokers, agents and general agents to develop new markets, create new products, reach out to life companies and other financial firms to build alliances and expand our profession. It is neither the obligation or the right of NSSTA or SSP to do this, nor is it the responsibility of the life companies to fund our sales, marketing and product development ideas either."

This industry was founded by innovative, aggressive and entrepreneurial life insurance agents who saw a problem, applied a few creative ideas and built the industry that we enjoy today. Similarly the use of non-qualified annuities, structured legal fees and 468B trusts were pioneered by brokers who kept looking for market opportunities and ways to creatively develop them. Yes there were some smart and politically savvy life company executives and others who took the risk to help build these products, but largely most of what we enjoy as a profession is the fruits of guys who took a risk, spent their money and then sold and persuaded markets to come in and work with us built our profession.We demonstrated opportunity and value to the life markets!

The sad fact is that we are now largely a profession of guys running out the clock and playing a prevent defense designed to end the game with a lead, rather then aggressively and confidently building our profession. As a result we are faced with the current situation of having almost no allies in the financial and life insurance world that would lose a dime in revenue if our entire profession vanished tomorrow. A few more points to ponder then I'll close up this discussion:

1. NSSTA has too long pursued the agenda of a few large and powerful brokers at the expense of new ideas and markets. We have over the decades continually seen artificial barriers of entry to our business created where it is next to impossible for a financial professional outside of "the family" to enter our business and develop as a professional.

2. Our best ideas and biggest areas for growth; non-qualified annuities, structured sales, structured legal fees and 468B trusts, have usually had to battle against their own association and the apathy and hostility of other members and life and casualty companies. Product development and marketing often feels like your swimming upstream with lead boots on in this industry as every new market is seen as a threat to some company or broker.

3. Our general agents by and large refuse to spend money on product development, marketing and broker education unless they can get a life insurance company to subsidize it for them. Our industry has grown accustomed to squeezing the life company departments for every bad idea or marketing event they don't care to pick up and pay for on their own. Not to cast stones but would a certain internet radio broadcast still exist if it wasn't largely subsidized by annual contributions from life insurance company markets? Should and could annual general agency firm meetings be more then subsidized sales calls from the life companies that are asked to contribute? I'm not saying either of these are wrong, but where is the personal money, the risk capital of the general agents and brokers in developing new ideas, marketing platforms, alliances and life company relationships? It seems that if you can't get a life company to front the check, it simply does not or will not get done, and if the life company is paying, that bad ideas or old concepts are simply carried along by inertia or tradition. There are notable exceptions such as the recent PLR that IFS/EPS went and got last year and my own firms on going investment and development of 468B tools and techniques used to expand our market. However, these are now rare exceptions in a business that use to be filled with risk takers WHO SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY.

4. The life markets don't need us and in some cases might not want us around much longer. The world as we knew it has changed and life companies need to make, and are making every day, serious business decisions based on ROI on their capital and the value of our profession to their over all corporate mission and business plan. As we have utterly failed to incorporate life insurance, estate planners and financial planners into our profession as allies, we now are isolated politically and financially in a world where the big life players make chess moves that often leave us stranded even when firms like Genworth, AEGON, Mass Mutual, Aviva and Pruco are doing a superior job. Our $5 billion market is a pimple on the backside of firms that collectively are worth trillions of dollars and unless we move fast to partner up with a broader base of agents and experts we will be facing increasing irrelevancy.

So my readers, do not expect the life companies to come riding over the hill along with NSSTA and SSP to save the day or our collective bacon. Instead take a long look in the mirror and ask if you are willing to do what it takes to build your individual practice or energize your general agency to make it more relevant and attract fresh players, thinking and capital to our business. I personally am doing all I can to persuade some key players to work on such an approach, but we continue to face the calcified thinking of people who are happy with the status quo and wish to reward the same limited and aging players who got us to this point.

The question you need to ask yourself today is if you were 30 years old and looking to start your professional life over, right now, today, would you choose to enter this profession knowing what you know about how the BROKERS and GENERAL AGENTS have conducted their affairs over the last twenty years? Would you trust them with your capital, your career and your future to build something of value for you and your family?

Think that one over and decide what you will do for your profession, but stop waiting for "others" to do it for you.

The incredible, shrinking structured settlement market.

As I noted below, Prudential dropped a bombshell on the structured settlement market when they announced on a Friday afternoon at 5:00 pm that they were closing up their non-qualified structured settlement division and drastically altering the way they would handle structured legal fees.

While this one is another of those " yes we are shutting down a product line, but we are staying in the business " type announcements, it is hard to come to any other conclusion other then that Prudential's management doesn't support that market any further and is restricting dramatically the types of business the unit can write.

The sad fact is that while these announcements all put their particular spin on things, what we have for a fact is the following:

1. In the last 5 years we have had ZERO new life markets enter the structured settlement business and other then a few rumored initiatives with Mass Mutual and Mutual of Omaha that I've heard kicked around, there are no new companies on the horizon.

2. In the last 5 to 7 years we have seen ING, Canada Life, Transamerica, AEGON, Genworth/GE Capital, Mass Mutual and Aviva all pull out of the business.

3. In the last 9 months we have seen AIG/American General crippled by the collapse of the financial products unit at AIG, Hartford's credit rating and stability hammered by huge reserve requirements related to their variable annuity business, Allstate stop writing rated ages and put limitations on their per case capacity and now Prudential shutter with no notice their Non-Qualified annuity program and revise their underwriting on structured legal fees.

Ladies and gentleman could we please stop pretending all is well?

Could we also ask NSSTA and SSP to stop doing their Frank Dergin impersonations and telling us there is nothing to worry about and to move along, move along.

The cold fact is our industry is shrinking dramatically at the very time when our product is most needed and desired by trial lawyers, plaintiffs and trustee's around the country who want guaranteed, insured, tax favored cash flows that will allow them to get the most out of their money and not expose it to stock or bond market risk. I can speak only for my situation but I have NEVER had greater demand for my products, services and ideas from trial lawyers and injury victims then I have had over the last nine months during which our industries capacity to service these needs has collapsed.

During these nine months, instead of real discussion by our leadership IN PUBLIC AND NOT BEHIND CLOSED DOORS of the capacity and market concerns that threaten to cripple us, we have been treated to the same drum beats of what our industry needs to worry about by our leadership. Those being single claimant 468B trusts, factoring marketing and some mythical concern about the viability of section 130 in the next congress. The fact is from the perspective of the regular broker in our business single claimant 468B is a total non-issue, factoring while annoying at times has almost zero impact on the sale of our product to new clients and section 130 is locked in tight as part of our tax code and would take a major effort to dislodge as it is generally considered excellent public policy after 25+ years.

In short the perceived concerns and attacks have more to do with our trade associations lawyers and other experts fanning the flames of battles long ago won or lost instead of focusing primarily on new markets, new life companies, new products and new alliances.

If you want my opinion, and if your reading this far I'll assume that you do, on why we are losing life markets it is because we have lived by the motto of "flying under the radar" for so long that we have no alliances in the financial services community, no advocates outside of the settlement divisions in the life markets and quite frankly no one in a $400 billion company cares about some settlement division that gets shut down when the majority of their agents, brokers and planners can't access the product. I mean really, think about it. Who at those companies, outside of the divisions at Aviva or Prudential that were directly affected could have cared less that Aviva and Prudential shut down entire product lines?

Show me ONE Aviva agent or broker that had access to the structured settlement product. Show me ONE Prudential planner or broker that had access to their non-qualified products. The fact is they don't exist and because they don't who is there at the life market to argue our cause and promote our product in the big picture?

We have isolated ourselves as a profession, created unreasonable barriers of entry for new planners and brokers and our trade associations have pursued the interests of the largest players at the expense of growth in new alliances and products. For 25 years we have given the back of our hand to the life insurance agents, financial planners and plaintiff advocates that should have been our natural allies and we are now reaping the harvest. At the end of the day, when there is no natural allies or markets inside a life market to continue a product line, eventually the life company is going to pull the plug when hard times come and choices have to be made. Lets face it, are they going to cut their pension or regular annuity business or do you can the structured settlement division?

The long and short of it is that we are facing a crisis in capacity and I feel that we are going to see further tightening over the summer as companies continue to make tough decisions or decisions are forced upon them by market events. I hold out little hope that reactive leadership fighting the last decades battles, many of which should have never been fought to begin with, has the will or resources necessary to find new markets.

At the end of the day it will be up to the brokers and leaders who started and nourished this business to take back leadership of our industry from the life companies and build a compelling case for our product and services that attracts new money, new players and new products. Injury victims desperately need what we have to offer and we can not stand buy and wring our hands any further about business conditions. It's time to reshape our approach and build alliances and we need to get busy.

Prudential shelves their non-qualified structured settlement unit.

Today, in yet another indication of the incredible shrinking structured settlement market, Prudential announced that effective immediately they are shutting down their non-qualified structured settlement facility and revising drastically how they approach the underwriting of structured legal fees.

As the timing of the email, 5:00 PM EST, eliminates any possible communication with the company to clarify beyond the announcement we are left to ponder the thinking or circumstances that led to this somewhat shocking bombshell.

All this tells me, when coupled with the shut down of the Aviva structured settlement division, rating drops at American General and Hartford and capacity and underwriting restrictions at Allstate is that our market options on both the non-qualified and qualified structured settlements are shrinking rapidly.

While our industry has fixated itself upon an imagined battle with the evil forces of factoring and other minor annoyances that feed the lobbying and legal machine, we have watched as life company after life company has pulled out of our business or reduced the lines of business they will write.

At what point in time is NSSTA going to get off the 100 year war over factoring and realize that our biggest issue is that our sources of product are slowly but steadily vanishing and that we as an industry can't attract new players to our market?

This is a tough pill to swallow for those of us who have worked hard to expand the non-qualified annuity and structured legal fee area. Hopefully one of the life markets steps in to benefit from the steadily growing market of non-qualified annuities that has been created over the last five years.

50 million reason$ why I podcast on The Legal Broadcast Network

As many of you know, in addition to being the host of the Settlement Channel, the blog and broadcasting site your probably reading this on, I am also one of the founders of The Legal Broadcast Network and am currently it's Chairman and President.

In that role I have been the primary driving force in shaping The Legal Broadcast Network into a daily broadcasting site of interest to lawyers, law school, journalists and others following legal news. We are unique in that we are not an aggregator of news, but rather we find the news makers, the lawyers and others who help to explain and provide commentary on news and recent events. As that platform has been shaped and built over the last 3 years, the studio now resides in a brand new facility that allows us to broadcast 10 hours a day, add channels and commentators and dramatically expand the ability of lawyers, journalists, marketing experts and others to reach our growing audience.

As a result of my having to wear many hats, it is quite common that I neglect my writing and posting over here on the Settlement Channel, but what I lack in frequency I hope I make up for in quality. However, the reason for this post is I had a recent phone call that drives home the amazing impact having a channel on Legal Broadcast Network has had on my professional practice.

As you've noticed from our prior posts, a lot of our commentary over the last six months has centered around the growing acceptance and use of 468B trusts, a somewhat obscure but amazingly powerful planning tool used in multi-claimant and mass tort litigation. As part of those posts I have done a series of podcasts and interviews that Legal Broadcast Network syndicates for me as part of my channel package and agreement. What this means is my commentary doesn't just reside on this page, but ends up on Youtube, Facebook, Technorati and other third party sites, all with out me lifting a finger.

People often ask me "what benefit do you get out of your channel, does it really bring you business?"

Well, I would like to share the following story and statistics with you.

On Tuesday morning I received a phone call from an attorney who was asking if I would assist her firm with a reasonably complex but interesting case, which I quickly determined would be an ideal situation to use a 468B trust. She volunteered she had been watching a video on which I appeared discussing this concept and although she didn't know me or my firm it was obvious I had the specialized knowledge on the topic she was looking for. She was able to locate my firm and contact information very simply off the Legal Broadcast Network page and at the end of the call we agreed to work together on her case, which she expects to resolve this summer.

The size of the case is $50 million.

Now, I wish I could tell you I get cases called into the office on a regular basis of that size and quality, but the fact is that our phones ring every single week with new cases, questions from attorneys and others that eventually convert into clients as well as regular customers that just want to know more about annuities or their rights in settlement. I do virtually ZERO advertising or marketing of any other type as it is typically wasted dollars relative to the return I get on the network.

My point is this. My involvement in The Legal Broadcast Network and the amazingly wide distribution of my content and writing has exposed my firm and its expertise to attorney's who would have other wise never have heard of my firm. Also, the fact that Legal Broadcast Network syndicates my contact all over the web means I am discovered on the other affiliated LB Network channels, which is what happened in this instance. The attorney was looking at an attorney's video, but discovered my commentary and case knowledge as a result of my syndication on the network.

If you want to see the impact, go ahead and Google Mark Wahlstrom and see where my name and media shows up. It's truly amazing.

I bring this up because in the depths of a recession and massive turmoil in traditional media and advertising platforms the internet and broadcast platforms like Legal Broadcast Network dramatically improve your online profile and end up driving business to your door you would never otherwise locate.

Legal Broadcast Network is going to be announcing next week a "recession package" for lawyers, legal marketers and financial experts that is value priced but expansive in it's coverage, that you need to look into if you are serious about growing and expanding your business.

If you want to build your practice, if you want to establish your own brand and do it as part of a network that just topped 700,000 verified views and listens per month, contact me through the form on this page and lets talk. I don't care if we are in the same business, this market is huge and I'm willing to share what we know and what we have built if your ready to get serious about creating a professional practice that allows you to enjoy your life and build your professional reputation.

I have $50 million reasons why I plan to keep doing MORE of what i'm doing right now.

Prudential, Allstate and Hartford life insurance units all approved for TARP funds.

In what was expected news, Hartford Financial announced today that they had in fact been approved by the government for up to $3.4 billion in TARP financing to shore up the capital position of their life insurance units that had been battered over the last year.

Prudential also was approved for a capital infusion as was Allstate, each to lesser amounts then Hartford.

You can read some of the details by clicking on the WSJ story here.

What does this mean to structured settlement brokers and their clients?

In the short term, not much other then some breathing room from the daily concerns of another credit rating down grade. In the long term it means that these companies are inviting the government into their business by accepting funds that will always carry some stigma and political ties that will ultimately be suffocating in running their firms.

Myself and other brokers have some real concerns about the capacity of the life insurance industry to handle the business that could be written given the credit down grades of AIG and Hartford and the capacity restrictions at Allstate and other markets in the amount of funds they will accept per life or risk. If this in any way keeps the underwriting capacity at normal limits for now, then it's a good thing. However if we keep seeing companies paring back what they will write and how much they will write this will turn out to be strictly a "stop the bleeding move".

Business is in no way, back to normal, and unless the settlement profession can start to either attract other life markets to our business or make our existing business more profitable, then we are going to keep on facing these capacity restrictions for months if not years to come.

Update on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 11:39AM by The Settlement Channel

As was pointed out by a reader, Prudential and Allstate in fact have NOT decided if they are taking the TARP funds.

This story in today's WSJ does a very good job of clarifying the dilema the companies face in accepting it, first and foremost being the stigma of needing it in the first place can hurt business.

I'll continue to follow the story, but a more accurate headline would have been that Allstate, Prudential and Hartford all were APPROVED for TARP funds based on their application. I'll modify it accordingly until we know for sure which one's actually decide to accept the allocated amounts.