Structured settlements are financial arrangements according to which, a bigger amount of money is paid as periodic installments, as a follow to a lawsuit. Structured settlements appeared because sometimes the lump sum needed to be paid as compensation claim after a trial was so big that the loser was not able to pay it all at once, no matter what he might be selling. There are many countries in which structured settlements are part of the statutory tort law. Such countries are USA, Canada, UK, Australia and there may be some others.

In USA, structured settlements are regulated both at federal and state level, so contradictions are avoided. Many times, in cases when the defendant in a trial has insurance, the insurance company is responsible for paying the structured settlement annuities to the plaintiff who won the lawsuit.

Under some circumstances, structured settlement agreements can be traded. If the beneficiary of the periodic annuities requires a big amount of cash all at once, he may sell either the whole settlement or only a part of it to a buyer. Finding structured settlement funding options may not be easy, and it may require hiring a specialist, a broker, for finding customers and helping close the deal in legal conditions.