Post-Settlement Funding: Your Case Is Won. Your Money Shouldn’t Wait.

What happens between winning and getting paid?

Most plaintiffs assume settlement day is payday. In practice, a signed settlement starts an administrative clock that you do not control: release drafting and execution, insurer accounting cycles, lien negotiations with health insurers and medical providers, and in some cases court approval hearings.

Why Post-Settlement Approvals Are Faster

Pre-settlement funding requires underwriting an uncertain outcome. Post-settlement funding does not: the recovery amount is documented, so evaluation centers on confirming the settlement, the disbursement timeline, and the liens ahead of you in line. That is why these are typically our fastest decisions.

Liens Are the Usual Holdup, and We Understand Them

Health insurance subrogation, Medicare and Medicaid interests, and provider liens must be resolved before your attorney can disburse. Our underwriting accounts for known liens when sizing your advance, so the amount we offer reflects what will realistically be available to you.

Repayment Is Simple

When the settlement check arrives and clears your attorney’s trust account, your attorney repays the advance and the disclosed cost from the proceeds, and the remainder is yours. Settled-case pricing is typically 3% per month, simple, charged in three-month periods, and capped. There are no monthly payments in the meantime, and your complete terms are in writing before you sign, with the full breakdown on what pre-settlement funding costs.

What happens to your settlement between the trust account and your bank account?

The prompt-payment statutes get the check to your attorney. What happens next is governed by Medicare, the workers’ comp board, and the IRS, and each one adds time or takes a slice. Here is what each does and how it changes the advance.

How long after settlement does the check actually arrive?

In layers. The release gets drafted, signed and tendered, which can take weeks on its own. Then the insurer’s statutory clock runs, 21 days in New York and 20 in Florida as noted above. Then the check clears your attorney’s trust account, and the lien queue starts. Most of the real waiting lives in that last step, and it is the step post-settlement funding was built for.

What does a Medicare lien actually do to the timeline?

Medicare’s contractor sends a Conditional Payment Letter within 65 days of its first rights letter, listing what Medicare paid that it ties to your case (CMS, Medicare’s Recovery Process). After settlement your attorney reports the date, the amount and the fees, and only then does Medicare issue the final demand. Repayment is due within 60 days of receiving the settlement (42 CFR 411.24(h)); if the demand goes unpaid past its deadline, interest runs from the demand date and is assessed every 30 days, with a Treasury referral at day 150. For small cases, CMS does not pursue recovery on physical-injury settlements of $750 or less (CMS, 2025 thresholds), and settlements of $10,000 or less can use a fixed percentage option if elected before the demand issues (CMS, demand calculation options). For funding, the wait between the settlement and the final demand is the most common moment to apply, and the conditional payment figure is what we use to estimate your net until the demand arrives.

Settled workers’ comp: where it fits, and what else gets a say

First-party workers’ comp funding is available through our funding partners in nine states: CT, FL, GA, IA, LA, MO, NM, OH and TN. Everywhere else we serve, the settled claim we fund is the third-party claim from the work injury, such as a negligent driver or a defective machine, not the comp settlement itself. In the nine states, two more gates sit between the handshake and the check. First, the tribunal: in Florida, a represented worker’s lump-sum settlement needs the judge of compensation claims to approve the attorney’s fees, and the carrier must pay within 14 days after that order is mailed (Fla. Stat. § 440.20(11)(c)). Second, Medicare: if you are a Medicare beneficiary or expect to be, part of the settlement may be set aside for future injury-related care; those funds must be spent before Medicare pays for related treatment, and CMS reviews the set-aside when a beneficiary settles for more than $25,000, or enrollment is expected within 30 months and the settlement exceeds $250,000 (CMS, Medicare Set-Aside Arrangements). A set-aside is not spendable cash, so we size the advance to the part of the settlement that will actually reach you.

Is the settlement taxable, and does that change the advance?

For most injury cases, no. The IRS treats a settlement for personal physical injuries or physical sickness as non-taxable, unless you deducted related medical expenses in an earlier year (IRS Publication 4345). Portions allocated to other things, such as interest or lost wages in a non-injury claim, can be taxable. We are not tax advisors, and your attorney or accountant confirms your allocation. The point for funding is simple: on a physical-injury settlement the net your attorney projects is usually the net you keep, and that is the number we size to.

Already have funding on the case?

A settled case is the one situation where we will still look at a file another company funded while it was pending. The payoff to the first funder comes out of the same disbursement, we confirm that figure with your attorney, and the advance is sized to what is left. Tell us up front; it changes the math, not the answer.

Verified against CMS, eCFR, IRS and Florida statute text as of September 10, 2026. Rules change and exceptions apply, and your attorney confirms how they apply to you.