This site is about how you can sell annuity payments and several reasons for which you may want to do it. It can be great to be the recipient of a regular annuity payment. Maybe it’s from a structured settlement after an injury or accident, or perhaps it’s an annuity that you bought or were given. As the beneficiary of an annuity, you can depend on reliable monthly payments for month after month. On the other hand, it can be challenging if you need a lump sum of money right away from an expense like buying a car or making a downpayment on a home. Other people can suddenly need a large amount of money due to illness or an injury to someone in the family. An annuity won’t be helpful for this unless you have been proactively saving cash in a bank account which is quite rare among annuity holders.
If you are willing to sell annuity payments, there are a variety of companies who may be interested in buying them. Typically you can choose to sell the entire annuity including all future payments or even just a set number of future payments. When selling an annuity, you receive a lump sum of money all at once in exchange for some or all future payments going to the company that purchased it. This has a lot of advantages since it converts something that would only pay you a bit each month into a larger sum of money.
Selling annuities also has some risks. First, you should not expect that the company or person who buys it will pay you the total amount that you would be paid if you continued to receive payments. A significant discount will be applied that represents the advantage of the company who has cash now versus you who will receive cash in the future. There may also be tax implications to selling your structured settlement: before doing anything, it’s a good idea to check with an accountant who can help you understand the tax impact since it’s possible that a large amount of the lump sum you receive for an annuity may be owed in taxes. Finally, you need to make a careful decision about whether it’s worth taking a risk and converting a reliable source of future income into a single sum of money now. Many lawsuits result in a structured settlement annuity instead of a lump sum in order to provide for the long term care and support of the recipient since many people will not be responsible with a single large amount. The statistics show that most lottery winners spend it all and go broke!
When you are thinking of selling your annuity, it’s important to shop around and talk with several possible buyers. If someone approaches you about buying your annuity, it’s a safe bet that their initial offer is not going to be very good: they are counting on your ignorance and laziness. You can get a much better price by getting quotes from several possible buyers and making it clear to each one that you are shopping around for the best possible price. This will help encourage them to offer you the best possible deal instead of gouging you on the assumption that you have no point of comparison for the deal.