In December, Wayne Schenk was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. A month later, he was a millionaire.
The 50-year-old tavern owner from Naples, New York, won a million dollars in a New York state lottery scratch-off game.
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Man with terminal illness wins 20-year annuity lottery jackpot
Feb 1, 2007, 6:50 pm (20 comments)
Well I would sell my annuity if I only had a year left. But that is just me.-weshar75
Is the annuity inheritable? Can you leave it to family/friends? If you can't leave it, can you sign it over to someone while you are still alive?
Yes - it's done all the time.
Yes, all lottery prizes go to the estate of the winner. I'm not sure I would cash in the annuity if I were dying, unless I didn't have any family at all. Usually the winner would ask a family member to claim the prize, so there would be no inheritance tax. In this case, he didn't win over $2 million so there probably won't be an inheritance tax on the money. By cashing in the annuity and losing so much money, less the taxes, his family wouldn't be left with much. I'm not passing judgment, since we don't know the situation here.
Selling the annuity will net him less than if there was a cash value option, but he can certainy indulge himself a bit if he chooses. As far as providing for his family, if he has one, he's now got a chance to leave them more than he would for losing any of the numerous games with cash options.
According to this article, he has no family and wants the money upfront for an entirely different reason. He asked the Lottery Commission to make an exception so he can receive a new advanced cancer treatment for which he isn't covered. They refused. The caption under his photo is
"Wayne Schenk, left, won a million in the state lottery, but only after he had been diagnosed with cancer. Now, Schenk is trying to find a way to get more of the money up front so he can afford state-of-the-art cancer treatment."
http://www.mpnnow.com/news/view_story.php?articleId=6231
Talk about dangling a carrot in front of you.....maybe he could sign his winnings over to the doctors for his treatment...
Where's CO? I can't wait for him to weigh in on this!
Shhhh !!!
Be vewy vewy quiet !!!
"If you need cash now call J.G. ..."
It's your money, use it when you need it...
LOL DoubleDown. In this case, Cash Only would probably be right, except that the lottery doesn't actually have the cash advertized. It's always an annuity and the cash value is .......well, everyone here already knows. At least there should be a lump sum value when a prize is paid over 20 years. That said, we all can choose which games we want to play. The lottery can't make exceptions for any one particular person because it would be opening up that proverbial can of worms. However, maybe they should change all annuity games so they offer a cash value. This is a sad case, but I have some other thoughts about it which are more spiritual than practical. I didn't think anyone here would want to hear them.
BTW, fja has a good point. At first it didn't hit me, but if the only reason they won't perform the treatment is money, that might work.
This is one time where I would support Cash Only in the pursuit of a clause that would permit a cash payout (am assuming average annuity cash payout is around 30% which is far greater then the 10% a buy-out would pay) for annuity only games.
Perhaps if the clause read something to the extent of "In the event that the collective medical opinion of (xx number) State Board Certified Medical Doctors who specialize in the terminal illness of the Lottery Winner is such that the Lottery Winner could in no way live a normal life expectancy of an average healthy individual which would allow collection of at least 50% of the total annuity payments, then said prize may be paid in a single lump sum cash value equal to the original annuity cash value or the allocated funds that are available once all winners have been paid, whichever is lesser."
Such a clause would benefit both those who are elderly (65 plus) as well as those who are medically ill while at the same time, preserving the intent of establishing an annuity based game. And obviously...a lawyer would have to write it as to insure all the required loop holes are added and/or removed.
The only thing is he bought the ticket thus accepted the annuity only terms.
I wish him the best regardless!