U.S. Update News May 2002

COMPULIFE^® Software, Inc.The June 2002 disk update will be processed Tuesday, May 28th and Wednesday, May 29th. Disks will be shipped Wednesday, May 29th. You should have the June Update in your office by Friday, May 31st.

The June 2002 Internet monthly update will be posted to our four monthly update websites on Wednesday, May 29th.

Unless you have made arrangements to purchase your diskettes, please return your “April disks” ONLY AFTER you have successfully installed this May 2002 Update. April disks are your backup in case you should have problems installing the May edition.

Returning Old DisksThis section of the bulletin is for less than half of our subscribers. That’s right, the majority of Compulife’s subscribers now obtain their monthly updates by Internet.

With the new Internet updating feature built into our software, technical support calls requesting assistance in processing Internet updates have fallen dramatically.

To sum it up, Internet updates are easier, faster and cheaper.

For those of you who still obtain disks each month, and who don’t wish to switch over to getting updates by Internet, there are two ways to eliminate the problem of having to return disks. Please go to the end of this bulletin for full details.

Total Companies Quoted in the Compulife SystemDuring April it was brought to Compulife’s attention that there are some subscribers of our services who have been overstating the total number of companies which we include in Compulife Quotation System database. Such overstatements have occurred in advertising material, particularly webpages on the Internet.

A careful check was performed on April 13th and the total number of unique companies in the software was found to be 156.

As you will appreciate, the number of companies, due to mergers and acquisitions, has been in steady decline over the past few years. As a result, we can assume that this number will continue to fall.

Therefore, I urge you to amend your literature and website material to say that you compare insurance products from a database which includes “OVER 150 Life Insurance Companies”. Should that number fall below 151 we will try to remember to advise you.

Our thanks to the individual who pointed this error out to us.

Compulife Lite Internet Version to ChangeThe Compulife Lite Windows software, updated by internet, will be replaced in June or July with a modified version of the program under a new name called “Term4Sale – Agent Edition”.

Compulife Lite will continue to be the name given to the DOS version of the software which is distributed by disk. There will be some minor changes to that version but it will remain much as before.

Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” will have the following software modifications and conditions attached to it:

1. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” is ONLY available by Internet. It is the Windows version of Compulife’s comparison program.

2. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” will be sold for:

$129 – 1 year subscription
$189 – 2 year subscription
$239 – 3 year subscriptionAverage price per year for a 3 year subscription –   $79
Average price per year for a 2 year subscription –   $94
Average price per year for a 1 year subscription – $129NOTE: There are no wholesale discounts for this version of our software. Subscribers can receive 50% of the one year subscription price as a referral fee credit to their account should they refer a new “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” customer to Compulife.

3. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” entitles the purchaser to one free listing at Compulife’s www.term4sale.com website.

4. Those purchasing Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” will NOT be permitted to purchase additional zip codes at the www.term4sale.com website. If you wish to do that you must upgrade to a personal use or agency use version of the Compulife Quotation System.

5. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” will have the exact same product categories that appear at Compulife’s public “Term4sale” website. This means that we will be removing the “other term” category from the current database and replacing it with the 5 year category.

6. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” will not permit you to have term quotes added to your website by one of our authorized website providers. To access that option, you must upgrade to at least a personal use version of the Compulife Quotation System ($199 per year).

7. Compulife’s “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” is being further streamlined for the purpose of making this software as simple as possible. This new low price assumes that our technical support is kept to a minimum. We frequently have our time consumed by questions about program options that are not the main function of the software. Therefore, the following changes will remove some of the less used functions. However, these functions will continue to be available in the personal use version of the “Compulife Quotation System”:

Master Menu will be simplified and shortened:

“Interest Adjusted Cost Analysis” (removed)
“Income from Capital Analysis” (removed)
“Retirement Investment Analysis” (removed)“View/Print File Option” will be replaced by “Compulife Bulletins“. The only files which can be displayed from this option will be:

Update News – Monthly Bulletin
Mid-Month News – Product Change Log“List or Modify Product Database” following options removed:

“List All Companies in System” – This option is rarely used. The list of companies can be displayed by pressing F2 (Display a Single Product).

“List all Products by Company” – This option is rarely used.

“List all Products for a Single Company” – This option is rarely used. The list of products for a company is displayed by pressing F2 (Display a Single Product), selecting a company and when that window is displayed, pressing the down button next to the name of the product.

“List all Products in a category” – This option is rarely used.

Important NOTE: Two of the three deletion functions are being removed. This will leave the function “Select a Group of Companies to Quote”. Of the three deletion options this is the easiest to explain and understand. You check off those companies you want in your comparisons and the system remembers your list from update to update. It is the easiest company selection option to explain and understand.

The Master Menu will also be altered to remove any reference to DOS program options. This will be a Windows only program in all respects.

Coming Enhancements to Database (June or July)In addition to the changes outlined above, Compulife is completing important work on several upgrades to our Windows software. These upgrades will be available to all subscribers who use our Windows version of the program.

The most important of these changes is a new modification to the “Category” button which is found on a single product window/display. The single product window appears when you press the F2 button (Display a Single Product). It is also the window that appears when you double click on a product from within a comparison.

In the top right hand part of the header there is a “Category” button which displays a list of premium categories for that product. The name that the company uses to describe the category is displayed together with Compulife’s short form classification. These are as follows:

P+Ns   –   Preferred Plus Non-Smoker
PfNs    –   Preferred Non-Smoker
R+Ns   –   Regular Plus Non-Smoker
RgNs   –   Regular Non-Smoker

P+SM  –   Preferred Plus Smoker
PfSM   –   Preferred Smoker
R+SM  –   Regular Plus Smoker
RgSM  –   Regular Smoker

Once again, these are Compulife’s short forms for our own internal categorization system for products. Regardless of how we classify the products you can display ALL the categories for that product, and see what the company categories are, by pressing the “Category” button.

The new feature will add the premium to the right of the company category description. Categories will then be sorted by premium in their respective non-smoking and smoking groups.

This will do two things for the user:

1. If you are trying to match a premium to one given to you by a consumer or another agent, you will be able to quickly see which category that premium is for.

2. Categories will sorted by premium. Previously, for companies with multiple P+ categories, there were occasions where a lower priced category might follow a higher priced category on the list. That proved a little confusing and had to do with the order categories appeared in product entries.

Smaller, Faster, Simpler SoftwareWe have added some new variables to our database which will allow us to remove a number of duplicate product entries, thereby reducing the storage space required for our software.

For example, there are now a number of products sold in Washington state where the only difference between those sold in Washington and those sold in the rest of the country are the maximum issue ages. To ensure that our system does not quote a product at too old an age for Washington, we have had to place a duplicate copy of the product in our system. That duplicate product only quotes Washington for its more restricted issue ages.

We have now added a new set of maximum age variables which will allow us to use the same product entry for WA and the rest of the country.

Another cause of unnecessary duplication was the fact that some states do not permit the sale of waiver of premiums for some company products. As with the maximum issue age example, Compulife’s existing method of dealing with this was to put one product in the system with waivers for most states, and another version without waiver for those states that did not approve the option.

Compulife has now added an internal “state not approved” option for waivers. This will allow us to turn off waivers for those states which have not been approved. Once again, we will be able to remove the duplicate product entries caused by this restriction.

We have also made further changes that will eliminate unnecessary storage caused by other limitations. As we convert products over to the new format, to take advantage of the new variables, we will begin eliminating duplication and the data files will begin to shrink. This will make downloading updates faster and will further improve the speed and performance of our software. The biggest benefit will be increased simplicity of use. Product lists will get shorter.

Midmonth Update ChangesOnce again, as those running our Windows program noticed in March and April, the new Windows program now automatically and periodically checks to see if there are newer mid-month updates available on the Internet. It compares the date posted on the website, with the date of your last download, and if the website has a newer date the program will advise you and ask if you want to download the update.

IMPORTANT: Midmonth updates can occur ANYTIME between monthly updates. These are placed on our website as changes occur, when they occur.

MIDMONTH.TXTMIDMONTH.TXT can be viewed using the View/Print File option on the Red Master menu.

For those who still wish to review the changes before downloading, you can still manually download the mid-month update.

UPDATE1.CMP is a very, very small update file which now contains the MIDMONTH.TXT file. By manually downloading UPDATE1.CMP (that will download almost instantly) and then by running and processing that file with the Compulife program (that will process instantly), you can review the MIDMONTH.TXT file using the View/Print File option on the Master menu. If you want the changes, you can then download the rest of the UPDATE files manually or automatically.

Trials by InternetCompulife has improved the software which we send to those requesting trials by Internet. The new trial program is now less than 100K in size and shipment by e-mail is very fast and simple.

To request a trial for a colleague, simply e-mail or call in their name, address, phone number and e-mail address to Compulife. Make sure we know that you are the source of that referral as you are entitled to 6 free months of service should they decide to purchase. (the referral credit does not apply to those who purchase through our bulk buying discounts).

The e-mail addresses for a trial are:

barneyrl@concentric.net
or
barneyrl@compulife.com 

What Next for New Features?a) Pick 12 will be modified to allow the filing of multiple life quotes reflecting discounts for companies which offer multi-life options. You will be able to print pages showing total premiums for all lives and then subsequent pages for each individual life. Discounts, where available, will be noted. As the Pick 12 features become available, they will be posted to our mid-month update site.

b) Pick 12 will allow the quotation of modal premiums together with waiver of premium. Currently, when you click on waiver of premium, the spreadsheet defaults to annual premium. If you switch to another premium mode, the waiver of premium is dropped.

Dueling WebsitesFor those who update by Internet, Compulife has gone to great lengths to provide you with redundancy in our websites. Our main website is:

www.compulife.comHowever, we keep another completely separate website, on a completely different server, in a completely different country, at:

www.compulife.ccWhatever we update to compulife.com, we also update to compulife.cc. If one website goes down, for whatever reason, the other is ready to serve you. That includes both monthly and mid-month updates.

Returning Monthly Disk UpdatesFor those not wanting to return disks there are two ways to eliminate the problem.

1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.

Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $80 per year in subscription fees.

To switch to Internet monthly updates, call us at (800) 798-3488. We will send you an agreement called the “Internet Update Endorsement”. Read it carefully, especially the part where you agree that you have successfully downloaded and processed our “mid-month updates”. If you haven’t done that before, call us and we’ll be happy to take you through the procedure. It’s easy.

2. Disk Purchase Program

The other way to avoid returning the disks and the disk box each month is to pre-purchase them for $21 per year ($1.75 per month). Once you do that you can keep them for future reference, throw them away or return them for a credit (once each year) when you are invoiced for the following year. $21 costs you less than mailing back disks each month.