In most medical malpractice cases, large amounts are involved in damages. If you have won your medical malpractice case, then a structured settlement will allow you to have the large sum paid out to you over time. You might want to consider having a structured settlement, since it offers certain advantages over receiving the whole amount at one time.
In most medical malpractice cases, large amounts are involved in damages. If you have won your medical malpractice case, then a structured settlement will allow you to have the large sum paid out to you over time. You might want to consider having a structured settlement, since it offers certain advantages over receiving the whole amount at one time.
Disadvantages of Receiving a Lump Sum Amount
Most people are not financially well informed enough to know what to do with a large lump sum amount that they obtain as compensation in their lawsuits. All of a sudden, these people now have a large sum of money and they do not know what to do with it. Should they invest it? Should they put the amount in a bank? Should they spend it? The reality is that just like lottery winners, people who receive a large sum of money all at one time have a tendency to lose that money over a relatively small period.
It is in fact quite common to hear of a famous athletes who go broke after a few years after they have left their respective sport. Mike Tyson, Allen Iverson, and so on come to mind.
Advantages of a Structured Settlement
One of the important options, your lawyer is obligated to inform you are about is a structured settlement. This means you can take as much or as little money out of the rewarded amount to do whatever you wish. You can have the remaining amount paid to you over a course of time. It can be over course of ten years or twenty years, or it could be over a course of your lifetime.
One of the major benefits of receiving money over time is tax benefits. This means you will be paying tax only on the money you are receiving and not on the awarded amount.
Secondly, when you open the door for a structured settlement, you will not have easy access to the full amount at one particular time. Usually, when your friends and relatives come to know that you have received a substantial amount, the will approach you for a loan or ask you to make an investment in their business and so on. When you have taken a structured settlement, you can refuse these people, since you actually do not have the full amount with you, and it is tied up in something where you cannot touch it for the next ten years or whatever period you have selected.
Not the Lottery
These are important factors to consider when you win your medical malpractice case or when you receive a huge settlement. The whole idea of compensation is to repay a debt that is owed. Somebody has caused you harm and injury, and the only true way you can be repaid is by providing you with monetary compensation. In fact, the defense attorney while fighting the case will remind you that this is not a lottery.
This is correct because you are only asking for full and fair compensation, and that is what you are looking for at the time of trial. However, when you receive the compensation, the main question is what you are going to do with such a huge amount. How are you going to use the money to rebuild your life and make yourself whole again? Pressing a button for structured settlement would be a wise decision to make on many different levels.
