Arrowood Indemnity is one of the most common private student loan creditor’s that sue consumers and try to enforce default judgments. Many people still wonder who they really are. Almost every client that I have ever spoken with has said, “I have no idea who Arrowood Indemnity is.” That is because Arrowood is what we call a guarantor or indemnity agency. The simplest way to describe them is by thinking of them as an insurance company. When a consumer applies and receives a loan from a private student lender such as Navient, Discover or Wells Fargo they have no idea that those loans actually have a guarantor behind them that insures these loans. When these loans are defaulted on, the original lender such as Wells Fargo eventually charges or writes off the loan and is then paid by Arrowood and made whole. Arrowood then has the task of pursuing the consumer to recover whatever monies it believes are owed. Unlike federal student loans where the guarantor is the federal government, Arrowod is very often the guarantor in private student loans.
The debt collection law firms of Rubin and Rothman, Meyers Saxon and Cole, and Kleinman Saltzman and Bolnick are often the firms either suing consumers or attempting to enforce judgments against them on behalf of Arrowood Indemnity. Arrowood has the burden to prove their case just as any debt-buyer would have to do. This means that they have to show standing, they have to show that the loan was properly assigned to them from whomever the loans were with originally and they have to be able to produce an employee with personal knowledge to testify to the transfer of the loan from the original creditor to Arrowood. These factors can be used against Arrowood and these law firms by pushing to have these cases dismissed because of a lack of the evidence discussed above or at least using these legal defenses to obtain great leverage in potentially settling the student loan debt with Arrowood. From our experience, we have seen Arrowood substantially reduce the amounts of these loans in settlement. The range that we frequently see is about 60%-75% off of the balance. Long term payment plans at no interest are frequently obtained so the settlement does not necessarily need to be in one lump sum. Although an Arrowood Indemnity case may seem intimidating and frightening, they tend to be one of the easier student loan creditors to defend against.