U.S. Update News January 2004
The February 2004 disk update will be processed Tuesday, January 27th and Wednesday, January 28th.
Disks will be shipped Wednesday, January 28th. You should have the February Update in your office by Friday, January 30th. Unless you have made arrangements to purchase your diskettes, please return your December disks ONLY AFTER you have successfully installed this January 2004 Update. December disks are your backup in case you should have problems installing the December edition.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Subscribers who are receiving disks can save up to $100 per year by switching to updates by Internet. Please read the last part of this bulletin for complete details. Don’t wait for your next subscription invoice to make the change. Compulife will bonus your subscription renewal deadline for switching from disks to internet.
It will be interesting to see what changes come about this year. A number of states are adopting the new 2001 CSO tables as of January 1st. This should reduce reserve costs for life companies, particuarly for older age clients whose policies are guaranteed 20 or more years. We anticipate that this will lead to lower insurance premiums for fully guaranteed 20 and 30 year products. Just when these changes will materialize will be interesting.
Compulife is also beginning 2004 with some improved software offerings and options that involve third parties. We do not refer to these indepently owned and operated business as “partners”, but we are clearly working together with these companies in the hope of mutually enhancing our independent product offerings.
Here’s how it works:
The user (agent or agency) enters the individual client information into the GBS “Agency Expert” database. Alternately, if the client is already in “Agency Expert”, the user simply retrieves the client or prospect record.
With the client record displayed, the user right clicks and starts “Compulife”. This will transfer the client data to Compulife and launch the Compulife program. The user makes whatever additional changes they want to the client entry screen, such as selecting face amount, etc., then begins doing quotes.
This means if the GBS user uses Compulife to do 6 different quotes for the client, each of the six quotes are added to that client’s record and can be retrieved later from the client record.
Quotes saved to the database are in the PDF file format. Because of this the new function is not available to “Term4Sale – Agent Edition” subscribers.
The interface has been designed to work for multi-users and this will give larger operations lots of options. For example, agencies who do quotes for agents can now keep a library of the quotes that they have done. Further, agents who use the “Agency Expert” can do quotes for their prospects and the system will manages copies of those quotes.
We believe that this new software synergy will add great value to users of both the Compulife and GBS programs.
Package 1 – 40 Term4Sale – Agent Editions $1,980 per year ($49.50 each per year)
and/or
Package 2 – 20 Compulife – Personal Use Editions $1,980 per year ($99 each per year)
Either bulk package of software comes complete with custom monthly update hosting for your group of agents. This means that Compulife will customize the software to include only those companies that you want your agents to quote. Compulife will provide the monthly updates by Internet from two separate servers and websites. This double hosting/redundancy ensures that your agents get their updates without problems.
The hosting and downloading of monthly updates from your custom sites is invisible to your agent. You will be given an “Interent Monthly Update” disk for each of your agents. Once that Internet monthly update disk is installed on the agent’s computer, it will point that computer to the correct spot on our website in order to download your custom monthly update. Once again, updating is fully automatic providing that the disk is installed on your agent’s computer.
Agencies who currently purchase this service from Compulife are very happy with it. It has eliminated the need for shipping monthly update disks to each agent and it has minimized the technical support needed. Once a year you pay for the service and once a year a single disk is sent to you for each of your agents. And that’s why we are making this arrangement even more attractive for agencies who would like to start. Keep reading; it gets even better.
Important Note: For those who receive custom monthly update hosting, you cannot mix and match the two systems. On the other hand, if you do not need custom hosting, you can mix and match either version of the software. Further, if your volume is sufficient, at least 40 Term4Sale – Agent Editions AND 20 Compulife Personal Use Editions, you can mix and match and also receive custom hosting for both editions.
Insurance Squared’s normal fee to add term quotes to a website is $99 per year. However, if you’re an agency subscriber who is bulk buying from Compulife, and if your agency is already using Insurance Squared for term quotes for your agency’s website, Insurance Squared will cut its fee in half for your individual agents who are part of the bulk purchase arrangement. Therefore, your agents can have their own on- line term quotes, at their own websites, for only $49.50 per year.
Add it up! You buy 40 Term4Sale – Agent Editions for $49.50 each. If any of those agents want term quotes on their websites, its only $49.50 more per agent for a total per agent cost of ONLY $99.
For $99 your agent gets term quotes on his desktop computer and term quotes on his personalized website. Now that’s a deal worth promoting to your agents before your competition does.
And if your agent doesn’t have his own website, you need to talk to Insurance Squared. Insurance Squared can offer complete website solutions and is happy to discuss bulk purchases of websites.
Call 866-662-5433 and talk to Glenn Cooke. Tell Glenn Compulife told you to call.
The only other condition for bulk buying arrangements is that the agency handles the funds. If the agency wants to charge its agents, or to provide the services as part of a promotional program, that’s all up to the agency. The agency is responsible to collects all fees and pay Compulife.
Compulife believes that this is an important new option and feature for agents and agencies. This new service will give Insurance Squared a very competitive market position. If you are currently using alternative systems for on-line quoting and forms libraries, you need to call Glenn Cooke, president of Insurance Squared. Once again, Glenn’s number number is 866-662-5433.
This change is intended to address the problem that we have had with subscribers relocating between updates. The address that we have for a subscriber from last year may have changed and given that we have not mailed anything for almost a year, there is a strong possibility that we can get disconnected from the customer. This new renewal option addresses that problem.
If you have not been using this option you can go to the top of the Pick 12, Comparison or Single Product Displays and click on “File”. Instead of clicking on “Print”, you can click on “Create and Email PDF File as attachment”. This will start your e-mail program and automatically attach the quote as a PDF file. It will also populate your e-mail page with the default form data. The default form data can be changed and modified by going to that option which is found at the top of the Red Master Menu under “Options”.
The first function that we are adding is “Driving Record”. This is the simplest of the three.
The second function that we will add is family history. This is considerably more complex to design and was the most complicated of the health criteria to date. This is because different companies have a wide variety of different rules and criteria regarding this matter. For example, some companies are concerned if there is a family history of “death” due to certain disease/illnesses (before certain ages which vary), while other companies are concerned about a history of the mere existence of those disease/illnesses before certain ages (which vary). Some companies pay attention to parents only while others look at parents and siblings.
The list of diseases also varies by company. Some are concerned about CAD (Coronary Artery Disease), while others are concerned about that and Cardiovasular Disease (CVD). Some are worried about cancer of any type while others dismiss certain types of cancer such as basal cell carcinoma. Others appear focussed on just certain types of cancer.
Needless to say, we have had to design and create a questionnaire that encompasses all the criteria which might apply. This design work is now complete. We think that we have come up with an approach and method that is all encompassing yet simple enough so as to not drive you nuts while answering the questions.
The last function that we will tackle is avocation and hazardous sports where we will deal with pilots, scuba divers, etc. The design for this part of the analyzer is not yet complete.
To go with that coming option will be a “Health Criteria Report” which will explain what premium classes were rejected by the program and the reasons why they were rejected. If the health criteria for that product was not provided by the company, the system will still pick the lowest premium available for the class selected. The Health Criteria Report will indicate that health analysis was not performed for that company/product.
Some companies permit a discount for husband and wife when they buy policies at the same time, while others also allow it for business partners. Many companies that allow the discount for business partners will allow the discount for more than 2 partners and so the multi-life comparison button for non-spouse will eventually ask how many clients to include in the comparison. It will give the total premiums for that group. You will also be able to file that group of 2, 3, 4 or 5 individuals into the Pick 12.
Once this function is completed our multi-life comparison option will be completed.
For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other websites to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.
1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.
Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $100 per year in subscription fees.
To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our webpage www.compulife.com and select the last menu choice “Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc.” Under the section “License Agreements” you will need to select and complete a new License Agreement for the type of license you have. After you have printed the new agreement, please read it, 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 step 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.
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