U.S. Update News July 2002
The August 2002 Internet monthly update will be posted to our five monthly update websites on Monday, July 29th.
Unless you have made arrangements to purchase your diskettes, please return your “June” disks ONLY AFTER you have successfully installed this July 2002 Update. June disks are your backup in case you should have problems installing the June edition.
More specifically, states which impose maximum ages that are less than for the rest of the country, will begin quoting at ages above their maximum. The old programs will not look for the new maximum ages for those applicable states.
States that may be affected are WA, NJ, PA and TX.
Last month we introduced a similar change for waiver of premiums. Some states do not permit waiver of premiums, and some do. To accommodate this, as we did with the maximum issue ages, we would place the product in Compulife twice. Once with waivers, once without. States that allowed waiver would quote the product entry with waiver. The states that did not allow waiver, quoted the other product entry.
There is now one product entry for both cases. The program now pays attention to new data that correctly determines if the waiver premium is available.
HOWEVER, if you are using an old program, with the new data, the program would simply not pay attention to that data and quote waivers anyway.
The state based maximum issue age works the same way. If you do not have the newest version of our program, the problem will be that you will be quoting a product that may not be available at that older age in that state.
Once again, those mostly affected are agents/agencies using our Internet engine. You need to request the latest update ASAP. Others who may be affected are subscribers, who for one reason or other, kept older versions of our program files and use those instead of the newer versions. Sometimes we change options or print formats, and customers may use older programs to preserve something they were doing with our software. Such customers would also be affected.
For the vast majority of our customers there will be no problem in that the update software automatically comes with the newest program which is fully compatible.
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.
Prior to this, to print in Windows you needed to go to the “File” option at the top of the window, select print, then click OK in the print options window.
However, if you do not need to change your print options, such as default printer selected, you can skip all that by clicking on the “printer icon” which appears to the right of “Help” on the top line of the window. That will immediately send your printout to the default printer. One click instead of three.
Two year subscription pricing for those receiving disk updates has been eliminated. This reflects the fact that we would like to see more customers switch over to obtaining updates from Internet. That saves you money, and us money. As more customers get software by Internet, there will be upward pressure on the cost of sending disks, and as a result disk update prices will not be going down and may instead rise.
By contrast, internet updates help us manage costs extremely well. That’s why we now have added a three year subscription to the pricing options. Agents or agencies can save $99 per year for each additional year that they purchase when renewing a one year subscription. For example, a personal use subscription to Compulife is $199, but a second year can be added by paying an additional $100 for a total price of $299. A third year can be added by paying an additional $100 for a total price of $399 for 3 years.
The strategy behind these pricing changes is simple. Those who obtain their monthly updates by disk represent the most work and expense for Compulife. By contrast, we do not have to ship or handle disk returns for Internet subscribers.
Further, each year, when we invoice for subscription renewals, and process subscription payments, there is substantial administrative work that is entailed. We must invoice you. Frequently our customers move and they do not advise us. We must track them down. When we receive your payment we have to process it. Next we issue you an Internet Master Disk authorizing you to obtain updates for another year. And of course there are those subscribers who pay late. The Internet Master Disk is not shipped until payment is received, and for those who pay late the subscription expires. At that point the phone starts ringing and there is a mad scramble to get the customer back up and running. Nobody is happy.
Added up, it’s a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of frustration and a big expense. When you purchase a two year (or now three year) subscription, we can eliminate all that work and hassle for the second or third year. That saves us money and it enhances our customer retention (there are no subscription refunds for early cancellation) and improves customer satisfaction. All of it adds up to us affording to offer very deep price cuts for 2 and 3 year subscriptions.
The Company information function provides the name, mailing address, phone number and contact people for the company’s home office (where we have that information). We have now added the website and the e-mail address for general inquiries. While we have worked very hard and located the home webpages for virtually all life companies, we have not entered a number of the e-mail addresses. We would ask that life companies advise us as to which address they would like us to give out to subscribers wanting to make initial inquiries of life companies.
In the DOS version of the program, the links and addresses are displayed but you cannot launch the browser from the DOS software.
In the Windows version of the program, a button appears at the bottom of the “Company Information” window, and the button when clicked will activate your Internet browser and take you to the life company’s website.
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.
c) Multiple options for comparison. For example, now you can do a comparison with waiver of premium, OR you can do a comparison with monthly premiums. You can’t do both. When this change is completed, you will be able to do both.
For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we have three other websites standing at ready with the monthly updates. If you cannot obtain your monthly update from either compulife.com or compulife.cc, call our office at (800) 567-8376 and we’ll tell you where the third site is.
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”. Alternately, the agreement is now available at our www.compulife.com website under “Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc.”
Once you have it, please 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.
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