There are usually 3 accepted ways that most companies will offer you to cash out your structured settlement.  Most of them are based on if you have an annuity that you are getting payments on a monthly basis from.

Lump Sum Payment

You can sell your structured insurance settlement for a lump sum to companies.  This is often one of the more popular methods, however you need to weigh how much you will recieve in the lump sum compared to what you would get if you don’t sell.  You can expect to loose up to 50% of the total value, but it really depends on the negotiations when you sell.

Partial Lump Sum

This is good if you are wanting a quick cash infusion to your bank account, but still want an income on a monthly basis.  You are only selling a portion of your monthly payments, or a set number of your monthly payments.  This might mean that you are reducing the number of payments that you recieve or reducing the amount you recieve each month.

Shared Payments

With this method, you are sharing what you would recieve each month.  Let’s say you are getting $10,000 each month from an annuity and you sell a portion of the payments for cash up front.  You might end up getting $5,000 each month for a lump sum payment upfront that would be smaller than the amount totaled you are selling.

As you can see, there are generally 3 ways to cash out your annuity.  It really depends on how much cash you need right now and how much you are willing to sell as a “charge” for the cash right away.