First Annuity Provider to Focus Exclusively on Structured Settlements for Personal Injury Victims
DALLAS – (April 30, 2018) – Company officials today announced the launch of the Independent family of companies including subsidiary affiliates Independent Life Insurance Company and Independent Assignment Company. Independent Life will be the first annuity provider to focus solely on the structured settlement market to help personal injury victims and their families. The Texas-based company will complement the industry’s current life insurance carriers that offer annuities to fund structured settlements from their larger suite of insurance products. Independent Assignment Company will work with settlement advisors to craft customized payments streams that best meet the financial needs of personal injury victims and their families and will fund those streams with custom annuities from Independent Life Insurance Company.
A structured settlement is a negotiated financial arrangement where a person, who receives a settlement related to a worker’s compensation or personal injury claim, agrees to receive tax-free periodic payments on an agreed schedule, rather than as an immediate lump sum. The responsibility to make those future payments as negotiated in the personal injury settlement is taken on by an assignment company and funded by a licensed insurance company. Frequently, the parties seek structured settlements because claimants are deemed incapable of managing their finances independently or are too young. Additionally, even some who could manage a lump sum immediate settlement choose the periodic payments of a structured settlement because it offers guaranteed, attractive benefits they cannot match on their own.
Independent Assignment Company will serve a nationwide market soliciting assignment of settlement liabilities from settling parties and buying funding annuities from Independent Life Insurance Company, its newly launched sister company.
Independent Assignment Company, Independent Life Insurance Company and their holding company, Independent Insurance Group, were formed as a collaboration between management and LKCM Headwater Investments, the private equity arm of Luther King Capital Management, a Fort Worth based investment firm founded in 1979 with approximately $15 billion in assets under management for high net worth individuals, institutional clients, private investment partnerships and mutual funds.
“We spent significant time and effort designing and creating these companies with valuable input from industry leaders,” said James D. Atkins, CEO of Independent Life Insurance Company. “We believe Independent Life’s singular focus on annuities to fund structured settlements will result in excellent service and broker support, as well as upper tier pricing, to improve and help grow the industry.”
“With a combined 100 years of experience in the structured settlement industry, the Independent Life leadership team has a deep understanding of the structured settlement industry and is committed to helping the industry improve its business processes as well as its business performance,” Atkins added.
In addition to Atkins, the Independent Life Insurance Company management team includes Donald J. Herrema, Vice Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, and J. Todd Hagely, Chief Financial Officer. Atkins is also President of Independent Assignment Company with Daniel P. Durbin, Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Patrick J. Hindert, Vice President of Business Development and Christopher M. Bua, Vice President of Internal Sales.
Independent Life Insurance Company’s risk profile is dramatically different from all previous annuity providers funding structured settlements because it is a single purpose insurer without the entanglements of unrelated product lines that have challenged some other providers. Additionally, it does not have any historical structured settlement annuities with pricing out of alignment with today’s investment environment.
Independent Life was founded by LKCM Headwater Investments and Independent Insurance Group’s Chairman of the Board, Michael A. Upchurch. “Michael realized that there was a critical and growing need for structured settlement solutions for severely injured individuals that will enable them to better manage their lives,” said Atkins. “We took his vision and will move it forward by being a company that can help provide those solutions, so those individuals can achieve those goals.”
About Independent Assignment Company
Independent Assignment Company, a subsidiary within the Independent Insurance Group, will seek to be the best in class servicer of the advisors to personal injury victims and their families.
About Independent Life Insurance Company
Independent Life Insurance Company, also a subsidiary within the Independent Insurance Group, is the first annuity provider to focus exclusively on the structured settlement market to help personal injury victims and their families. Independent Life Insurance Company’s goal is to provide trustworthy, competitive and innovative annuity products that professional consultants can easily integrate with other financial products and governmental benefits to produce optimum settlement planning solutions for personal injury victims and their families.
For press kit, visit www.Independent.life/media