After winning a large lawsuit, you may receive a personal injury structured settlement.  A personal injury structured settlement is a payment plan that will pay you a portion of your total settlement in structured intervals.  The intervals are usually monthly, quarterly, or yearly.  Each structured settlement is different.  If you are looking to get all of your cash at one time, you have the option to sell your structured settlement to a broker or investor (if it is legal in your state).  They will pay you cash for your structured settlement, but will charge you a fee for it.  The fee will usually range between 10-30%, and will vary depending on the size and dollar amount of the settlement and how long the term is.

There are a few things to watch out for when you sell structured settlements.  The most obvious advice is to trust your instincts.  If it seems shady, or too good to be true, it probably is.  Shady brokers will go to extreme lengths to scam you out of a very large chunk of cash.  Also, be sure that you go through the legal process.  It is illegal to sell structured settlements without have legal approval to do so, if a broker tells you that they can get you your money quicker by skipping the approval, RUN!  This is a tell-tale sign that you are about to lose a bunch of money.  Spend a good amount of time researching brokers before you sign up with any of them.  This will save you time and money by doing it the right way, the first time.

Finding a structured settlements company to buy your payments from you is easy, but finding the one that will give you the most money for it is a little trickier.  There are hundreds to choose from, and each has its own terms for your sale.  The best way to find the best one is to request information from each structured settlement company about their terms and the amount they purchase settlements for.  The size of the payment you receive will vary based on the number of payments you wish to sell and the length of time they will pay out over.  A structured settlement that pays over a very long time, more than 10 years, will be charged more in the sale.  This is due to inflation decreasing the value of the dollar by the end of the payment terms.