A payout is the number left after a buyer has discounted your future payments back to today and taken its margin. There is no list price, because the inputs are your schedule and the buyer's cost of money, and the two vary. What there is, in one state's statute, is a published reference point that makes the arithmetic checkable.
The calculation, in the order it runs
A buyer takes the payments you are selling, applies a discount rate to each one according to how far away it is, adds up the results, and then deducts its fees and costs. What reaches you is the net advance amount; what the payments are worth on paper is the gross. New York's statute asks a court to consider whether the discount rate used to determine the gross advance amount and the fees and expenses used to determine the net advance amount are fair and reasonable, which tells you exactly which two numbers to ask a buyer for.
The discount, and the published yardstick
The gap between the face value of the payments you sell and the money you receive is the discount, and it is the whole price of the transaction. The trade body's reported range is between 9% and 18%, and a few points over a long stream is a very large sum. Florida's statute names the yardstick a court measures it against: discounted present value is the fair present value of future payments, determined by discounting them using the most recently published applicable federal rate.
What a Texas court has to find
Texas puts the requirement in the form of an effectiveness rule rather than a penalty. No direct or indirect transfer of structured settlement payment rights shall be effective and no structured settlement obligor or annuity issuer shall be required to make any payment directly or indirectly to any transferee unless the transfer has been approved in advance in a final court order based on express findings by the court. Those findings include the best interest of the payee, taking into account the welfare and support of the payee's dependents, and that the payee was advised in writing to seek independent professional advice.
Questions people ask about structured settlement payout
Does a court really have to approve this?
Yes, in every state. The federal exception in 26 U.S.C. 5891(b) applies only where the transfer was approved in advance in a qualified order, and the order must find the transfer is in the best interest of the payee, taking into account the welfare and support of the payee's dependents.
What is the single biggest variable in the price?
The discount rate, and after that how far in the future the payments you are selling fall due. The reported range across the market is between 9% and 18%.
Do you take a share of what I get?
No. Buyers pay a flat fee for the enquiry itself, never a share of the discount and never anything contingent on a transfer completing.