Hartford Life exits the structured settlement market

Effective November 6th, 2009, Hartford Life, part of Hartford Financial, will cease writing structured settlement annuities and shut down what was once one of the leading structured settlement divisions in the market.

This comes as no great shock as the company has been staggered by a series of market related developments that made it almost impossible for structured settlement brokers to utilize their product.

The first major change was the turmoil of last year in which Hartford Life was one of the major red flag companies caught up in the variable annuity market in which their widely sold and highly popular line of annuities were pummeled by market value guarantee riders that rating agencies required them to reserve heavily for at the very time when capital was the most difficult to raise. The company weathered the storm, partnered with Allianz financially to some degree and rode things out, but the resultant drop in their AM Best Rating to A crippled them in the structured settlement arena. A similar fate befell American General Life and in a matter of weeks two of the industries leaders were essentially sidelined and deemed unfit to write a wide range of settlement annuities.

It is a sad day for the profession as another market leaves an already reduced group of life markets and another group of quality professionals are put out of jobs in a touch economy. Watch my interview with John Darer

Comments

[Anonymous]

What a sad statement...that an A rating crippled a company in our industry. Down to just a handful of A+ and two A++ companies. What will this industry do when it's down to just one or two life markets? And you forgot to add the destruction of their P&C program as well. I was no fan of it, but that business could have kept them in. Hope Dick Risk and his ilk are happy they helped drive out a life market. Somehow, I don't think we'll see more structured settlements for Hartford claimants. Well done, morons.

[Anonymous]

The company will recover, but the life company won't be back into structures and the casualty company will not offer nearly as many structure opportunities. Of course, that's just whining according to John Darer.

[Kim]

What does this mean for my son's stuctured settlement that we have with Hartford? They have over $300,000 of his money and guarnteed over 1 million in payouts over the next 40 yrs.

[The Settlement Channel]

Kim,

This will have no impact on the ability of Hartford Life to continue to make payments, it just means they made a business decision to stop writing new business. Hartford is one of MANY very good and stable life markets that suffered through a ratings down grade last year and who have an A rating vs an A+ rating or A++ rating with AM Best. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it but if you have further information you'd like you can contact my office by going to my Wahlstrom & Associates web site and getting our 800 number and giving us a call.