Legal term
Qualified Settlement Fund (QSF)
Updated Jul 20, 20261 sources
In a sentence
A court-supervised fund (IRC §468B) that receives settlement money from the defendant and pays claimants later — letting the defendant pay and exit now while allocation, liens, and structures get sorted out.
QSFs decouple the defendant's payment from your check: the defendant funds the QSF and takes its tax deduction; the fund administrator then resolves each claimant's allocation, medical liens, attorney fees, and any structured-settlement elections before distribution.
For claimants the practical meaning is timeline: 'the defendant paid' and 'you got paid' can be many months apart, with the QSF stage in between. It is also where structured-settlement decisions get made — see structured settlement.
