Crafting a Settlement Plan That Drives Success
A settlement planner can help structure your settlement to meet your long-term financial goals while minimizing tax liabilities. Depositing your settlement funds in a trust can preserve your eligibility for needs-based public benefits such as SSI, Medicaid, and public housing. This is called special needs planning. It’s an essential element in your settlement plan.
Defining Your Goals
Defining your goals is the first step to creating an actionable plan. Financial goals are specific money-related targets with defined time frames and can include everything from establishing emergency savings to saving for a dream vacation. Clearly defining and connecting your goals to your core values will make you more likely to stay motivated.
A settlement plan involves a holistic approach that includes assessing needs, providing education, and developing recommended strategies and solutions to help clients maximize and protect their lawsuit recovery. Specifically, it addresses how individuals receiving a personal injury settlement, inheritance, or judgment can meet their financial goals while maintaining eligibility for government benefits. Traditionally, personal injury settlements have been paid in a single lump sum. This can be overwhelming for people to manage and affect their eligibility for public assistance programs like Medicaid.
Identifying Your Resources
When planning where to place plots at a settlement, identifying what resources are available is essential. Whether government planners plan budgets, health workers distribute bed nets, or humanitarian agencies respond to an emergency, they all need to know where people live to direct their efforts effectively.
Similarly, personal injury attorneys and structured settlement brokers must understand the financial options available to their clients. They must also know how to help them choose the right solution for their specific situation – from a structured settlement annuity to investment-backed payment arrangements, from trusts to methods of compliance with income thresholds for maintaining needs-based public benefits. Using this framework to guide the settlement planning process can help plaintiffs avoid costly mistakes and ensure their settlement is utilized wisely. It will also help them meet their fiduciary obligations to their client and the courts.
Developing a Strategy
An effective strategy is designed to meet your goals. It includes defining tactical objectives, creating a timeline, and communicating responsibilities.
A good strategy also takes advantage of available opportunities and assets. For example, a client may be able to invest a portion of their settlement in a primary residence and other assets that do not count toward needs-based public benefits. In other cases, clients may use their settlement to purchase new equipment, remodel their home, or buy a car. An experienced settlement planner can help people understand their options and recommend tools to maximize their lawsuit recovery.
Implementing Your Plan
As you implement your plan, keep close tabs on the statistics that make up the success of your campaign. This will help you to shape future campaigns and make improvements where necessary. When using email or text to communicate with consumers, tracking metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and payment links is easier because consumers don’t have to call in.
In addition to financial planning to maximize a settlement, some plaintiffs are structuring their proceeds to comply with income thresholds for government benefits programs such as Medicaid and SSI. To do this, they may establish a special needs trust with the help of a settlement planner. These specialized professionals can help individuals and families understand their legal rights and obligations. Several states actively seek input on allocating settlement funds through advisory committees that include elected official appointees, people with lived experience, and other stakeholders.
