JG Wentworth founded in 1991 is a financial service company involved in the business of buying structured settlements & annuities from individual clients. The company began as a merchant bank specializing in handling transactions within the healthcare industry. In 1992 the firm started to buy New Jersey’s car insurance deferrals, to facilitate the settlement of claimants who could not wait from between 12- 18 months.

In the late 1990’s JG Wentworth started to specialize on structured settlement & annuity business. The company has issued twenty two- securitizations, backed by structured settlements & annuities receivables amounting to more than $2.3 billion. Since 1992 JG Wentworth has bought future payments obligations amounting to $4 billion. As at November 2010, the firm had finalized a $212 million securitization catering for 2- classifications of notes: Class A rated Aaa and Class B rated A2 by the credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, besides to the Residual class retained by the firm of $14.8 million.

Before 1999 structured settlements in New York City were not regulated JG Wentworth entered an agreement with State leaders seeking to protect the residents of New York from trading off their settlements at un- competitive rates. The contract indicated that JG Wentworth could obtain a rate of about 25 percent (and less) of the annuities discount rate annually that it had bought from the residents of New York City. According to the executives of the JG Wentworth, the company sought the contract because of its growth it was experiencing at the time.

An annuity buyout:

An annuity buyout takes several forms. Typically, the borrower receives cash that is paid back with several annuity payments and secured by the borrower’s assets. JG Wentworth on the other hand, buys payments of future annuity from the owner in exchange for a cash lump sum, today. Buying future annuity payments offers many benefits compared to the annuity buyout. The most important benefit being that debt is not created.

In addition, the consumer’s credit rating is not affected by the sale of future annuity payments. Indeed, with the annuity buyout if the regular annuity payments are delayed or interrupted, the borrower falls back on his/ her obligation in terms of credit payments leading to a default on repayment and eventually to a poor credit rating. An impaired credit rating can affect the consumer’s ability for obtaining future financing.
 
Sales & marketing:

JG Wentworth is acknowledged in the United States for advertising commercials involving Mr. Wentworth. In recent times the commercials feature the JG Wentworth Opera. Furthermore, its tagline “It’s your money; use it when you need it!” is a common phrase in the commercials.