The North Carolina Life & Health Insurance Guaranty Association is a state agency that, as one of its dutites, provides a guarantee for an annuity bought by North Carolina residents.  If the company that sells the annuity fails, then the Guaranty Association will take over paying the annuity up to a certain amount ($300,000 per person).  This is similar to the role of the FDIC in protecting bank deposits.

Injured people who reach settlements in workers’ compensation and personal injury cases often are provided with annuities (called structured settlement annuitities) to cover future expenses related to their case, such as future medical expenses.  Through a wrinkle in the law, many of these structured settlement annuities were not covered by the N.C. Guaranty Association.

Senate Bill 780 fixes this problem by expanded the coverage of the N.C. Guaranty Association to include structured settlement annuitities for North Carolina residents.  The Bill has just been passed by the Legislature and is on the way to the governor for her to sign.  Hank Patterson and Narendra Ghosh assisted with the legislative effort.

Categories: Legislative Action Tags: Hank Patterson, Legislation, Narendra Ghosh, NC Legislature, North Carolina, Personal Injuries, Structured Settlements, Workers' Compensation