Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin: Merry Christmas…
U.S. Update News February 2005
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.