U.S. Update News February 2005

COMPULIFE^® Software, Inc.Next Monthly UpdateWe plan to post the March 2005 Internet monthly update to our six monthly update web sites on Friday, February 25th.

The March 2005 disk update will be processed Friday, February 25th and the disks will be shipped on that day. You should have the disk update by Monday, February 28th or Tuesday, March 1st.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Subscribers who still get updates by disk can save up to $100 per year by switching to updates by Internet. Please read the last section of this bulletin for complete details. Don’t wait for your next invoice to make the change. Compulife will bonus your subscription renewal deadline for switching from disks to internet.

MORE IMPORTANT NOTE FOR DISK SUBSCRIBERS:As of February 1st approximately 10% of Compulife’s subscribers were still getting disk updates rather than Internet updates. We are quickly approaching a crossroad. As the number of subscribers getting updates by Internet increases, the cost per customer to handle disk updates is growing, particularly when you consider that equipment and office space is set aside for those functions.

THEREFORE:

Effective July 1, 2005, NEW customers will no longer be able to purchase updates on disks. (MOST DON’T ANYWAY)

Effective July 1, 2005, EXISTING customers will be able to still renew their subscription for updates on disks, but the renewal price for disks will increase by $50 per year.

The last date for disk updates will be December 2006. All customers MUST receive updates by Internet from January 2007 forward.

EXISTING customers renewing after July 1, 2005 will be invoiced for the total number of months left to December 2006, based upon an average per month price which is based upon the new HIGHER disk update price.

IMPORTANT; PAY ATTENTION TO THIS:

If you will still want disk updates up to December 2006 here is your BIG chance to save money. If you act to renew your subscription PRIOR to July 1, 2005, we will let you renew up to December 2006 at the average monthly cost based upon the EXISTING lower PRICE for disk updates. If you wait until AFTER July 1, 2005, you will pay the higher price to get disk updates to December 2006.

Better but NOT a Great ResponseIn December 2004 and January 2005 I talked about a PROPOSED new feature for our software that involved Universal Life. While I have had a number of subscribers e-mail me as I had requested, the total number is a tiny percentage of our customers. While I will be putting those e- mails into a web page which life companies can review, to see why agents would appreciate the proposed new feature, I am not optimistic that the volume of responses will provoke the life company participation that I would like. Just so you understand what it is that I was proposing, here is a repeat of the description and invitation again:

Proposed U/L Illustration/InterfaceFirst, Compulife is not planning to add U/L comparisons to our software. We already have the U/L comparisons that we have decided to add. You will find those products in the comparison category called “To age 100 Level Guaranteed”.

NOTE: Term4Sale Agent Edition customers do NOT have this category.

Providing that a U/L product has a fully guaranteed premium that will not lapse before age 100 (some will guarantee longer), the product can be included in that category and we want to include every such product that we can.

The NEW PROPOSAL that I talked about last month adds nothing new to that comparison.

What Am I Really Talking AboutThe PROPOSED NEW feature I would like to add, is a “link” or “connection” between the Compulife program and the Home Office software provided by the life companies. Here is how I envision the function working:

PROPOSED NEW FunctionFrom the comparison results you would double left click on a U/L product which would cause the “Display Single Product” window to appear. (That part works already)

Next, IF the company has worked with Compulife in order to facilitate the new feature that we are PROPOSING, there would be a NEW BUTTON on the single product display window. Currently you have a button called “Rate Class”. Imagine a NEW button just to the left of it called “Illustrate”. If you were to click on this imaginary “Illustrate” button our software would then connect to the Home Office software, passing into the software the client’s information and displaying a genuine Home Office illustration for the exact same product that you were looking at in Compulife.

Again, this is NOT a new comparison feature. This would be a proposed new interface between our software and the company software. It would make it much easier to use the company software to generate a genuine life company illustration for the product you saw in Compulife.

So, Why Was I Asking for Your Help?The point of talking about a new feature that we do not have, and the point of asking for your help, is that to facilitate this new feature we would need to work with the Home Offices of various life companies in order to create the interface. We are not proposing to hack our way into the life company software, we are proposing to work with the Home Office to make whatever changes are necessary, to their software, to facilitate this feature. It may be that such features already exist in some Home Office software and we simply need to know how to connect. It may mean that the Home Office will need to make changes which cost money. The big question is:

Why Should a Home Office Work With Us?That’s where you come in. You cannot expect a Home Office to spend time and money on a project that no one wants. They would need to be convinced of its value. If agents don’t want or need the feature, why would the company spend money on providing it?

During the last two months I asked you to e-mail me if you thought such a feature would be important and to explain WHY you thought it would be important.

I received about 30 e-mails.

If that is the extent of the interest in this proposal, the proposal is DOA (dead on arrival). That’s the proposal being dead, not the feature. Once again, if that’s all the interest that exists, I have no interest in committing time and money either.

This is Up To YouIf you want this function/feature, you can e-mail me at barneyrl@compulife.com.

If you DON’T want the function/feature, do nothing. That’s all you will need to do, just do nothing. We’ll make sure you don’t get the new feature and assume everybody is happy as is.

Working Toward DOS program EliminationAs we move toward the 3rd quarter of 2005, when the DOS version of Compulife will no longer be provided, one of the functions/features that some Compulife subscribers needed the DOS program for was the ability to produce formatted .TXT files instead of printouts. They then took the text files and reformatted them to a presentation style that they liked better.

While Windows will allow you to create a text file, instead of printing, the formatting is quite different. In order to address this, Compulife is working on an improved format for such .TXT files and should have a midmonth update in February which includes a newer GOWIN.EXE that gives you that capability.

To subscribers using the existing DOS text format, you need to get busy and try out the new Windows version and let us know what problems, if any, the function presents. Once again, by the 3rd quarter of 2005 (likely October 2005), DOS will no longer be provided.

Coming Next – Improved PrecisionA small but increasing number of companies are quoting from rate tables that have fractional pennies. This is particularly true for U/L – no lapse policies. We intend to introduce a change to our database which will allow us to increase the number of decimal places that we store from two decimals to six decimals. Currently we take products that have fractional pennies in their rates per thousand and round the rates up to the next whole cent. This can make our quotes fractionally higher than they should be.

IMPORTANT: Change Will Require New Internet Engine

This change will require a minor data conversion which will necessitate a change to the data structure. This means that new data will not be compatible with old data. While this will not be a problem for customers who subscribe to our software, because the new program and data will be provided at the same time, it does create a problem for those who use the internet engine.

Therefore, if you are using Compulife’s Internet engine, you will need to be ready to replace the engine with the new engine once the new data is introduced. Due to the significance of the changeover, and the fact that everything will need to be implemented and tested before release, we are planning to make this change with the April monthly update.

I apologize for that delay but two events will take me away from the office in the new year; one for a week in January and another for a week in March. Given the importance of the changeover, we need to leave lots of safety room before making the switch.

WARNINGIf there is anyone out there, using Compulife’s Internet engine, and has not kept their subscription to that engine current, the new data files in April 2005 will NOT WORK with the existing engine. You will need to upgrade the engine in order to continue.

Therefore, if you are a current engine user it would be a good idea to make a note to contact Compulife in March, to ensure you get an updated version of the engine. If you are NOT a current engine user, but still using the engine, you’ve been warned.

Last Data Modification for DOSThe new April 2005 data file change will be the last change that we plan to make to the DOS version of Compulife. As previously discussed, Compulife will stop offering DOS software effective with the 3rd quarter of 2005. After that, the only desktop software that we will provide will be the Windows version.

Dueling Web SitesFor those who update by Internet, Compulife has gone to great lengths to provide you with redundancy in our web sites. Our main web site is:

www.compulife.comHowever, we keep two other completely separate web sites, on two completely different servers, at:

www.compulife.us     or     www.compulife.ccWhatever we update to compulife.com, we are also updating to compulife.us and to compulife.cc. If one web site goes down, for whatever reason, either of the other two are ready to serve you. That includes both monthly and mid-month updates.

For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other web sites to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.

Returning Monthly Disk UpdatesFor those receiving updates by disks, you are responsible to return those disks each month. Not returning disks can lead to the termination of your update service. For 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 $100 per year in subscription fees.

To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our web page 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.