Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin: Put This…
U.S. Update News November 2000
Unless you have made arrangements to purchase your diskettes, please return your “October disks” ONLY AFTER you have successfully installed this November 2000 Update. October disks are your backup in case you should have problems installing the November edition.
Before switching to updates by Internet we require that you complete a special addendum to the license agreement called the “Internet Update Endorsement”. Once you return that to us we will send you the “Internet Master Disk” which you will need to be able to process the “MONTHLY.CMP” file that you will then be downloading each month.
If you want to switch over to Internet monthly updates, please call our office at (800) 798-3488. Our staff will send you the Internet Update Endorsement.
Having said that, your ability to benefit from that service depends upon you making use of it. The good news is that the service is FREE; as in NO CHARGE. Now given that it is election time, we should all remember that nothing is for nothing. The accurate perspective is that this is a service that you are paying for, and if you aren’t using it, you are the loser.
We now maintain two separate website/servers to ensure that this service is reliable and fast. If one is not working, go to the other. You will find our mid-month update services are at www.compulife.com or www.compulife.cc.
1. Each monthly update of the system includes a “bulletin.txt” file. This file is installed to your \COMPLIFE folder when you install the update. You can read that file using Compulife’s “View/Print File Program” or you can read it with any text editor such as WordPad.
2. Monthly bulletins are now available at www.compulife.com and www.compulife.cc. We have added the bulletins as a link from our main menu so that everyone, including subscribers, can access that information. We have placed some older bulletins at the website. A running history of the current and past bulletins will be maintained at the site.
If you want the newest Windows program now, and don’t update monthly by Internet, you can download it from our mid-month update service. Call us if you have any trouble downloading the mid-month update.
Finally, the free month offer for being the first to find a rate error stands. This means that if you use the new Windows program, and find a rate quotation mistake, you get a free month for being first to report it.
When the new category is implemented, the client entry screen will allow the Plus question to be answered regardless of whether the client is regular or preferred. When a comparison is made, a new light green designation “R+” will show up next to those premiums which are in the new category. Further, if the preferred question is answered no (meaning regular), and the plus question is answered no (not checked), comparisons will not include the standard plus rates. Look for that change possibly in December, or more likely in January.
When companies began introducing preferred plus categories, Compulife responded by adding a second product entry for the same product, by creating a new switch within that product entry to indicate the product was “plus”. The problem is that we have ended up with two product entries to contain the rates of one product.
The new change will permit up to 4 preferred non-smoking categories, 4 non-smoking categories, 3 preferred smoking categories and 3 smoking categories. Each of these categories can be further qualified by being plus or non-plus. It is our sincere hope that this will be a sufficient number of categories to deal with the future.
The first benefit of this change will be that instead of two, and in some cases three product listings to deal with one product, Compulife will be able to cut most products to a single listing. That will allow Compulife to store and retrieve all product categories, while at the same time saving file space which will increase comparison performance.
For example, Guardian Life has preferred plus and preferred rates. In Guardian lingo, the word “preferred” does not mean better than standard risk, it means a person who is a non-smoker. Preferred plus means non-smoker plus, where plus is a person who is a better than standard risk. We get calls on that confusion all the time.
In the future, when we run into such breaks from standard industry language, we will be able to record and display the company’s category labels instead of the standard language. For example, consider Old Line Life. Instead of displaying the term “Preferred Plus Non-Smoker” on the individual product display or printout, we will instead display “Select Non-Tobacco Class 1 P+NS”. The P+NS will be the category which Compulife considers this class to fit in, and the “Select Non-Tobacco Class 1” will be the language that the company uses to describe that category.
Using that same example, if that product was displayed on screen, and the user pushed the letter R, a list of categories would display. They would be:
Select Non-Tobacco Class 1 P+NS
Select Non-Tobacco Class 2 PfNS
Select Non-Tobacco Class 3 R+NS
Standard Non-Tobacco Class 4 RgNS
Select Tobacco Class 5 PfSm
Standard Tobacco Class 6 RgSm
The user could then select any of those categories and the premiums for that category would display.
In addition to that, Compulife is now providing, at no additional charge, two new supplemental programs for use with the Internet engine.
The first is the “Income Replacement Calculator” which will allow an Internet user at your website to determine the lump sum of money to replace an annual income for a period of time based upon a given inflation and interest rate. I am convinced that the biggest problem term insurance buyers have is that most do not purchase sufficient coverage. A term policy that is too small, at either an expensive or competitive premium, will leave an insured’s family in a financial lurch.
Most consumers think $500,000 is a lot of money. Part of the reason for the success of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is the idea of the lottery-like payday. However, if that amount of money was used to replace the annual paycheck provided by a breadwinner, it wouldn’t last as long as most people think. I am convinced that the new Income Replacement Calculator for the web will help consumers educate themselves in a simple way.
It should be noted that this new Internet program has been made possible by our work converting the existing Income Replacement Calculation (F7 in Compulife) from DOS to Windows.
The second free supplementary program is a rate updater that will make uploading rates to your website a simple, one step process. The way the Internet engine works is that the user places that program on the webserver, and then places a copy of the PC based software in a COMPLIFE folder on the same webserver. Each time the subscriber updates their PC version of Compulife, they must then upload that change to the webserver. Some have found the job tedious which is where the new update program comes into play.
First, the updater only uploads the needed files. Second, it completes an upload of the needed files under temporary and different file names. Only after the file upload has been successfully completed does it delete the old versions of the files, then renames the new files to the correct filenames. This reduces the time a consumer is unable to get quotes from your site. Further, if something with the file upload goes wrong, it means your quote service operates uninterrupted.
Both of these supplemental programs are included free of charge to new purchasers of the Internet quotation engine, or to those renewing the Internet software for another year.
Term4Sale is now a registered trademark. We received the notice of registration in August.
Finally, those listed at Term4Sale will be invoiced for the year 2001 during the month of November. For the reasons explained in previous bulletins, Term4Sale is still sitting on the lion’s share of the money paid into the company by subscribers. This is because we have not been spending that money promoting the site and will not do so until certain market realities change.
Because of this, you will be offered a special price for your 2001 listing renewal. Term4Sale will be invoicing those who were listed at Term4Sale during 2000 at 50% off the renewal price of $1 per month per listing. Look for that invoice in November. In order to obtain the 50% discount, and in order to remain listed without inte