In a long over due move, Mass Mutual Life via their Settlement Solutions group out of Charlotte, NC announced last week that they would now begin to write stand alone structured legal fees. This brings the folks from Springfield into the marketplace where a lot of premium is being written and where I personally believe most of the real action and growth in our business is going to take place in the next 18 months.

Structured legal fees are the greatest untapped source of premium our industry has available, but too often the life markets have had inconsistent underwriting standards as to the types of cases they would write, whether they would do stand alone fees, whether they would do fee's on non-qualified cases, etc. I am continuously amazed at how the life markets and brokers have failed to capitalize on the new clarity from the IRS, Congress and Supreme Court rulings as to the ability of attorney's to structure, but will complain about the lack of growth in premium.

An industry advertising campaign would go a long way to create a rising tide that would lift all ships, if that campaign were directed at tax professionals and trial lawyers. The fact remains it is the only industry that can effectively do non-qualified deferred compensation with their fee's, but the vast majority of trial lawyers still don't know about it. Having some uniformity in what kinds of cases can be structured, how they are underwritten and what requirements are needed would go a long, long way to kick start this sleeping giant.