Update News for June 2018

Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:

• • Embedding Quotes

     

     

  • Print Preview, Copy to Clipboard, Paste

     

     

  • How Did you Get Those Quotes?

     

     

  • Formatting Pick 12 Spreadsheets

     

     

  • What About Adding Color To Pick 12 Printouts?

     

     

  • Term4Sale Is Now On Its Own Server

     

     

  • Compulife WebQuotes Plus – API

     

     

  • Compulife WebQuotes Plus Pricing

     

     

  • Internet Engine Pricing

     

     

  • Compulife Batch Analyzer

     

     

These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.

 

Embedding QuotesEarly in May (on the day I began this draft) I had some communication from a former Compulife subscriber who gave me quite a lecture on the fact that he didn’t like to send people quotes that are attached as PDF’s. He told me he prefers to have quotes embedded in the email, as part of the email. Once again, he was railing against “attached” pdf’s. I asked why?

That ended up with him giving me a long drawn our explanation of why attached PDF’s weren’t any good and how the new “thing” was to have the quote embedded into the email. Each time I focussed in on one of the “reasons” he gave, to examine the basis of his thinking, his argument seemed to break down. In the interest of brevity I won’t bore you with the details, but by the end of the discussion I realized that if this was a story that one agent was buying, then probably more were buying it as well.

I asked him to send me a sample of a quote he liked to send out by email which he did. I then responded with an email that took his email and modified it with an embedded quote from Compulife which looked like this:

NOTE:   I copied and pasted the email into Word and then used Word to create a PDF. I did all that so you can see what the email looked like. You don’t have to do all that to embed the quote into an email but let me underline that you can embed Compulife quotes into all kinds of things: emails, word documents, etc.

I also did another example for you, this time embedding a Pick 12 quote (I picked 5) rather than the comparison that I used in the first example.

How was I able to to this?

 

Print Preview, Copy to Clipboard, PasteIn order to embed a quote into an email or word document, simply follow these steps in Compulife:

1. Go to “File” at the top of the screen and select “Print Preview”
2. At the top of the preview screen click the “Copy to Clipboard” button
3. Go into your email or word page, click your mouse where you want the document, then “paste”

NOTE:   To get the quote where you want it, first left click your cursor where the quote should begin. With the cursor where you want the quote, you right click and choose “paste” from the menu or you can do a control-V. That will place the document into the space allocated.

The quote then appears in the document or email as an embedded image. That is important because we don’t want to deal with the formatting issues that would results if you were simply pasting text (yes, you can paste just text). Call us if you can’t figure out how to do that.

As an image, if you are viewing the email in a narrow format, the quote will simply adapt and size to the width of the screen. If you have tighter margins in the word document, that were allocated for the original quote, then the quote will shrink to fit.

 

How Did you Get Those Quotes?If you took the time to look at either of the two examples above, you may be wondering how I was able to do those quotes. They may look different than what you are used to.

In the first example I combined a “multiple category” comparison with a “summary page” results page. How can you do that?

First, when I ran the comparison, I clicked the down button to select the category. The second last option is called “Multiple Categories”. When you choose that option, a new window appears with a list of all the possible categories in Compulife. I checked off 10, 15, 20, 30 and to age 90. I then chose “8” as the number of results and hit the “Compare Now” button. A comparison displayed.

Second, I went to “Print Options” which is the third option on the top line of the window (below the “Display Product Comparison” title bar). The first question on the Print Options menu is “Number of Comparison Pages to Print (1)”. The default value is 1 but I clicked and chose 0.

NOTE:   Comparison pages give you the top quote results in a block format showing renewal premiums. If renewals are NOT something you want to print then you can turn off the block format by setting the number of these pages to “0” (zero).

Then I clicked on print options again and said that I wanted 1 (one) summary page. One is the default, but you can change that up to 9 such pages.

By selecting the 5 categories and 8 results per category, I ended up with a quote with 40 products that nicely fits on a single page. Some agents like this format and we have explained to those who ask for it how to get it. Based upon the reaction of the agent who was telling me PDF’s were not good, and that quotes need to be embedded, he seemed surprised when I sent him that example. Whether you print the formatted page, save it as a PDF or embed it into another document, it is a nice multiple category, multiple company format and now you know how you can do it.

 

Formatting Pick 12 SpreadsheetsMost agents know you can use our spreadsheet option which is called “Pick 12 Policy Analysis”. In the second example above, because I was embedding this into an email, I did NOT want a landscape format which is the default format in our software. Second, because “to age 90” seemed to be an example this agent like to promote, I wanted the user to see more than 30 years.

The real benefit of the Pick 12 policy analysis is the way you can use the high costs of future renewals to up-sell your prospective customers to level premium guarantees that match the period that the customer will need the insurance. Consumers that buy shorter periods with the intention of re-applying at the end of their initial level period are playing with fire. In the event their health deteriorates, they may be faced with much higher premiums or the inability to even buy insurance. Buying a longer level guarantee locks in their health and guarantees premiums remain affordable.

It so happens Compulife already provides a Pick 12 printer format we call “PORT40.pty”. I simple switched to that format and was able to produce the quote in the second format.

To change a Pick 12 print format you simply go into “Pick 12 Policy Anaysis” (assuming you have already filed in some quotes) and select “Style Options” from the top line of the screen. From that menu choose “Print Style” which will display the Print Style optons window. In the bottom left hand corner of that windows click the “Load Print Style” button. After you do this, you will see our list of print styles:

• LAND20.pty

 

• LAND30.pty

 

• PORT20.pty

 

• PORT30.pty

 

• PORT40.pty

 

NOTE:   “LAND” is short for landscape (sideways on the page) while “PORT” is short for portrait, where results are displayed in the normal up and down page format which is the format I used in the second link above. The numbers 20, 30 and 40 are referring to the number of years being displayed on a single page. Generally you will want to select the number of years you think your client will need insurance. The advantage is to show how bad the renewals get after an initial level premium period that does not go as long as your client will need the protection.

I prefer the look of a portrait quote but if you attempt to put more than 6 or 7 products into one of those quotes, it gets pretty crowded. That’s where landscape comes in. On the flip side, if you need to see more than 30 years in the quote results then the landscape just gets lines that are too crowded.

 

What About Adding Color To Pick 12 Printouts?The sample print styles we provide to you are in black and white. Black and white keeps your printing costs down. If you want color in your Pick 12 quotes, you can get those using the Print Style options. Color selections can be made in the top of the “Print Style” option window, the same window where we select print styles. At the top left you begin by selecting the component on the page that you want to modify. Then, to the right of that selection you use the font and color option to change the fonts and color.

Compulife does not provide sample color printout pages because there is no accounting for taste. Some people like some colors others hate those colors. No one “hates” black and white so we keep our defaults options neutral. If you want color, have at it.

NOTE:   If you modify a print style to something else (like adding color) please “SAVE” your print style so you don’t lose it if you switch to another print style format. Save Print Style is an option on the window.

CAUTION:   Do NOT use one of the default print sytle names that we have as the 5 defaults. The reason is simple, those files are updated each month. If you saved a change into one of those default names you will lose it when you get a monthly update. To avoid this, just use any name other than the defaults. For example, if you add color to “PORT40” then save it to a new style called “MYPORT40”; just don’t use the default namer.

 

Term4Sale Is Now On Its Own ServerTerm4Sale has been moved and is now running on a new server. As I mentioned last month, a couple of years ago we moved our web quote option to an SSL server. The SSL server was to permit customers with their own SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) websites to be able to feature our web quoting option without a complaint from a browser that the web quoting option was on an unsecured server. At the same time we put term4sale on that same server. Unfortunately the SSL certificate was not issued for the domain name “term4sale.com” it was issued for the domain name used to produce the webquote option. Since doing all that our position in search engines has been slowly degenerating and I had wondered if term4sale, not being the primary domain identified in the SSL certificate, had something to do with it. With term4sale on its own server with an SSL certificate specifically for term4sale, we will be monitoring to see if that makes a difference in the search engine results.

We will also be using this same server for the new Web Quotes Plus option.

 

Compulife WebQuotes Plus – APIDuring May we continued with our work on the Compulife’s WebQuotes Plus option. The mechanics are now completed and we are working on the database that will be used to operate the option.

As we previously advised we hope to get as many customers as possible to migrate from the Internet Engine to the new API. The purpose is to gain much better control over the use of our internet quoting software and to identify unlicensed, unauthorized use.

The new option will use a standard json API where you send an json request to the server (we will provide a sample) and the server provides a json response back. You then transfer those results into pages where you will be able to modify the look, feel and function. You will have a control panel on our server that lets you limit and choose the companies that you want in quotes. If you need to fine tune which products are available, from a particular company, Compulife will assist you with that.

The big plus for API customers is that Compulife will be the one that does the updating of rates to the server, and will ensure you are using the latest Internet Engine (which will all be on our server). Those are issues that current Internet Engine User have to deal with on their own. As we update all our other servers at the same time it’s a well worn routine for us and your servers will be kept better up-to-date than when you are having to do it yourself.

An API option is something a number of newer prospective customers have been asking for, and this will kill two birds with one stone. As to security, the source code that calls the engine will internal to your server and NOT visible to your website visitor and certainly not visible to a hacker attempting to steal data from Compulife’s database. That fact, combined with additional security features that we will be establishing should make it very difficult for hackers to exploit our software in order to take information for a competing product offering.

 

Compulife WebQuotes Plus PricingPricing for the Compulife WebQuote Plus is not yet finalized, but will be tiered based upon volume use. At this point there will be three or four tiers of volume, offering those using less quotes per month a price level that is less than the current Internet Engine price.

 

Internet Engine PricingThere will be a new, much higher annual fee for the Internet Engine but we have not yet determined what that will be. there will still be a cap on volume use but it will work differently. Once again, we have to guard against unauthorized users reverse engineeing our database by using robots to run and capture quotes. Because our software is so fast on its own, we have to add governors that prevent this kind of abuse.

We are happy to work with customers who think they have methods to guard against this kind of abuse of our internet engine, and so don’t be afraid to explain to us how that can’t be done through your server.

IMPORTANT: There will be no change in pricing until the WebQuote Plus option is tested, implemented and available. There will be a transition period for those that elect to move to that option.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Price changes will not take affect until the first renewal following the price change. If you are currently paid for one, two or three years, your prices are locked.

 

Compulife Batch AnalyzerOnce the API has been introduced, and we have made change to address abuse of our internet engine, there is one group of folks who like to be able to robotically run large volumes of quotes for analysis purposes. These are the life insurance companies, who want access to our quotes for competitive pricing analysis. To address demand for this Compulife has decided that we will be introducing a brande new product called the “Compulife Batch Analyzer”. The Batch Analyzer will permit a life insurance company to batch process multiple quotes for multiple scenarios on a Windows PC computer, and then have the resulting quote information exported to a spreadsheet format.

For companies that do this manually, you will save a lot of time. For life companies not currently able to do this, it will give you an important way to quickly profile the positions of your products in the market.

The Batch Analyzer will be available as an option to life insurance companies who:

• 1. Have a Standard License Subscription to Compulife

 

2. Who provide Compulife with their rate information

The Batch Analyzer will have a two tier pricing structure. The first tier will be a single month subscription allowing a life insurance company unlimited use during that month. The second tier will be an annual subscription that allows unlimited use during the entire year.

The Batch Analyzer will be an option to the Compulife Windows PC program and will run from the Red Menu. The option will appear as a button on that menu, but will only work if you have the Analyzer and if the Analyzer subscription is enabled.

Certain parameters for the Analyzer will work in conjunction with the PC software. For example, if you want to batch analyze a particular group of companies, that group will be set using the “Manage Product Database” functions in the software. If you want only certain A.M. Best ratings or better, you will set that using the Enter Client Information in the Windows PC software. Users of the Analyzer can test some of the parameters that they are constructing by using the PC program to run individual quotes. Once they think they have the parameters properly defined for any individual quote, the user can switch to the Batch Analyzer which will quickly produce hundreds of quotes and export those results to a spreadsheet.

The reason we are providing the Batch Analyzer is because we will be effectively remove the ability to do this with the web quoting options. We do not want anyone using our internet software to batch quote thousand of multiple quotes.

In addition to the Batch Analyzer software itself, Compulife will be providing a special update for Batch Analyzer customers. Those that buy the single month version will be entitled to a special midmonth-like update file which will let the life insurance company preview a tentative rate change and compare those non-released product premiums with their existing products and with the products of other companies in our database. This assumes that the company has provided those rates to Compulife which we will then enter and release back to the company in a special update which can be used with the PC software and that will then be accessable by the Batch Analyzer.

Once again, that special preview update will ONLY go to that company and will not be provided to anyone else. Compulife treats all pre-release information provided by life insurance companies as “top secret” and it is never provided to third parties. Further, Compulife never provides the raw data provided by companies to third parties.

Customers who buy the annual version of the Batch Analyzer will be entitled to two such updates annually. Such preview updates beyond the two will be available but there will be a cost for the update. Prices will be announced later, once the product is available.