Travelers' Structure Policy
Is A Bummer for Lawyers Without Advance Planning
Have you every been at an airport on your way home or on your way somewhere and encounter a status board that looks like the above? I think we all have. Think about how you have felt the last time you faced that situation.
No Structured Attorney Fees | A Longstanding Travelers Insurance policy
Now imagine you’re a plaintiff lawyer. It’s December 15th and you’ve just settled a $3 million case for your client with a Defendant insured by the Travelers, or one of its subsidiaries. The Travelers Companies, Inc. is an American insurance company. It is the second largest writer of U.S. commercial property casualty insurance and the third largest writer of U.S. personal insurance through independent agents. You’ve had a good year and you’ve maxed out your 401(k) or pension contributions and you are contemplating structured attorney fees or attorney fee deferral programs. But the flight status board shows that all flights are canceled. Those flights unfortunately never leave the gate. Travelers has had a decades long standing moratorium on structured attorney fees, even though Travelers is a substantial consumer of structured settlements in the settlement of its claims. It’s the Travelers’ business decision and long standing company policy. The Travelers has every right to “cancel all flights”, even if it is out of line with the thinking of most other insurers.
Structured attorney fees and non qualified deferred compensation attorney fee deferral programs are highly effective tax efficient methods of addressing the financial needs of an attorney or business objectives of a law firm that earns contingency fees. Structured attorney fees are also known as structured legal fees and attorney fee structures. It is not necessary for the plaintiff to enter into a structured settlement for the attorney to avail themselves or their firm in attorney fee deferral.
Some knowledgeable insurers and defendants welcome the use of structured attorney fees as they may facilitate closure of their claim files.
What to Do if You Want to Defer Attorney Fees and Have a Travelers Case
- Work with a settlement planner to go over your inventory of cases that you expect to settle during the next 6-9 months.
- Identify cases where a defendant is insured by Travelers (or another insurer or Defendant or will not participate in attorney fee deferrals) and plan around them. You can structure or defer contingency fees on another case or series of cases with more attorney accommodating insurers. There are plenty
- Where appropriate, use a qualified settlement fund. Note that if there is only a single claimant, there are fewer structured settlement annuity funded options.
- Explore and/or use attorney fee deferred compensation solution that does not require insurers’ consent.
Following publication of this post, one of our sources indicated that Travelers may agree to structure attorney fees if the plaintiff is also structuring but it will not structure attorney fees on a standalone basis.
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Last updated April 10, 2023
