COMPULIFE ® Software Inc. 
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Update News
for September 2022
These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin. Critical Illness Sample Policies When we added Critical Illness products to the Compulife database we also needed to add specimen/sample policies for those CI product. That is because, unlike life insurance, there are serious differences between the coverages offered in CI policies from different companies. As there is no easy way to compare contract provisions, the best way we could make that information available was to provide you with the sample policies. As we had already created the Compulife Forms Library by that point, and as both life company forms and sample policies are all just PDF files, it just made sense to use the Forms Library for the CI sample policies. In the U.S., where we do NOT quote CI products, the forms library is for life insurance company forms (applications, underwriting and service forms). The next part of this bulletin talks about that and really only applies in practice to U.S. subscribers. For whatever reason we have never had even one life insurance company in Canada take us up on our offer to have forms provided in the Compulife forms library. There is no question that the Canadian market is quite different from the U.S. market. Another product that we sell to life insurance companies in the U.S. is the Compulife Batch Analyzer which allows the company subscriber the ability to research their competitive position in the market for large numbers of cases. For example, I did a batch analyzer demonstration a few days ago where our software produced 12,000 quotes in 3 minutes, exporting all those results to a spreadsheet. In the U.S., where we quote for about 100 companies, 20 of those companies are using our Batch Analyzer (about 1 in 5). In Canada, where we have 20 companies, we have only one Batch Analyzer customer (1 in 20). We remain ready, willing and able to add Canadian life company forms to the Canadian forms library, in the event any company would like to have their forms easily accessible to our customers who also happen to be the agents/brokers that sell the company's products. is YOUR Forms Library It has now been 15 years since Compulife added a Forms Library to our software. As it has from the beginning, the Compulife Forms Library is a FREE service for Compulife PC subscribers. Forms have been free because it has NEVER made sense to us that any life insurance agent or agency should have to pay for life insurance company forms. When I was first began to sell life insurance in Canada in 1979 there were no PC computers, no internet and no electronic forms. All application and service forms were pre-printed by life insurance companies and given FREE to agents. Today, even if you get PDF forms for free, they end up being printed by YOU at your expense. On top of that, many third part forms providers charge agencies for the privilege of accessing those forms. Somehow high tech has taken us from something that you used to get for free and has replaced it with something you have to pay for. I continue to find this bewildering. With electronic forms life insurance companies should be saving money. After all, companies no longer have to pay for printing and shipping of forms to agents. And when a form is changed/updated, there is no longer any waste with old forms being tossed aside. As background, unlike the rates which Compulife obtains and uses to quote insurance premiums, forms are protected by copyright. Compulife can and will ONLY offer forms from life insurance companies who have given us permission to provide their forms. Apart from needing that permission, the ONLY condition that Compulife makes to a life company, in order to include their forms in our library, is that the company will routinely advise us of changes to their forms, such as new forms to be added and out-of-date forms to be removed. We need to know what states forms are used in. Further, we try to work with companies to create the product categories into which their forms are listed in our software. IMPORTANT: There is NO CHARGE to a life company for our forms service and there is NO CHARGE to our customers for this service. The ONLY exception is that if our subscriber choose the web option of providing forms. Agency subscribers who have our webquote option can add a forms engine to their websites for $84 per year. This gives the agency's website (can't imagine an agent needing this) a way to provide forms to their agents at no cost to those agents. The $84 per year is a token amount to cover the costs of server bandwidth and software maintenance (some forms are HUGE). Once again, you are NOT paying for the forms themselves. Our forms technology maintains a database of forms that use transparent text files that are easy to understand. Our forms database files can easily be converted into spreadsheets. A life insurance company does not have to use our technology to see how we are presenting their forms to our subscribers. We have INVITED and OFFERED our technology (for free) to life insurance companies. While the software we use to maintain the text files is compiled C++ code, the data files are such that if Compulife no longer provided the compiled software to the companies, it would be easy to write new software that talks to the old data files (text files). Alternatively, it would be easy to maintain the files by using a spreadsheet program. We have companies who from time to time ask us for a copy of our data in a spreadsheet and that is easy to provide. Providing a company maintains the format, they can make changes to that spreadsheet and we can re-integrate that back into our database. Therefore, if for some reason we were no longer able to maintain our database, the data files are so "open source" in nature that it would be easy for a life insurance company to continue to maintain it themselves. Over the years the biggest challenge that we have had is keeping the forms updated. Every company seems to have their own system for storing and retrieving forms, and they have their own ways of notifying 3rd parties like Compulife of changes to their forms. Sometimes we are in the loop for information, then a change in staff at the H/O leaves us out of the loop. When that happens it is the Compulife subscriber who gets an out-of-date form from Compulife, who then notifies us and complains about it. The will trigger us reaching out to the company to find out what happened. Given that we make no money on the forms library, and yet do a LOT OF WORK to keep it up to date, the question is "How many subscribers are using our Forms Library?" Obviously if no one is using it, it would be bad business for us to keep maintaining it. Once again, it is an expense to Compulife and generates no direct profit. So the question we have for you is "Are you using the Compulife Forms Library? If you are using it, please let us know. We would like to know how many are using forms through Compulife. If you are NOT using the Forms Library, why not? Is there something we can do to make it better? How do you access forms alternatively? Your feedback would be VERY helpful. Email us at service@compulife.com and tell us about it. In October we will be telling you about our price increases for 2023. The new prices will be incorporated into our renewal invoicing beginning with the mid-December invoicing for those whose subscriptions are coming due for the end of January 2023. New sales of software will be at the new prices starting January 1st. Increases will be based upon inflation which we think is running about 9%. There will be some rounding up or down and last years price increase will be taken into consideration for some of the price changes. Some prices did not go up last year and so they will be going up this year. You can lock in current prices by adding to your subscription BEFORE the end of November. Even if your current renewal is not up for some time, you can add up to 4 more years at the current subscription rates, and take advantage of our special 4 year discount of 25%. NOTE: The 25% discount for paying 4 years is a 40th anniversary special. We first offered this discount about March. The 25% discount will no longer be available after the end of November. 40th Year Celebration Referral Opportunity We continue to say "for the next 6 months" we are going to offer a special "6 free month referral opportunity" but we have been saying that for some time. The truth is that the 6 months is coming to an end at the end of October. If you have been putting off this opportunity, it is time to get busy in order to take advantage of it before we return to the standard 4 month referral deal. As background, all new prospective subscribers to Compulife start out the same way. If a prospective subscriber contacts us directly, we give them a 30 day free trial for Compulife's PC software. If that prospective subscriber does a 10 minute tutorial, to show that they have learned to use the software, then they get 4 free months of service. We BONUS for referrals - both the person who made the referral and the person who they referred. If an EXISTING subscriber refers that person to Compulife for a free trial, then the prospective subscriber gets 6 free months instead of 4. That's a nice bonus for the person you referred. For you, the person making the referral, we give you a free term4sale "home" postal code for 2 years plus the balance of the current year that we are in. That's for you, for making that referral. For the Next 6 months we are doubling YOUR bonus! For the next 6 months, as part of our 40th Year Anniversary, we are going to sweeten YOUR compensation for those referrals. IF your referral does the tutorial and signs up for the 6 free month subscription (no obligation to buy at the end of 6 months), then you can get compensated with your choice of:
or 6 free months added to your annual subscription to Compulife * * NOTE: This does not include 6 free months for the Compulife Batch Analyzer or the Compulife Internet Engine or bulk purchase sub-user licenses For those of you who are active participants to Term4Sale, and always anxious to add more postal codes, this should be a NO BRAINER. 2 local postal codes can be added to your account and even IF you have maxed out on your allowed number of additional postal codes, then we allow those added HOME postal codes over and above that limit. FURTHER, local postal codes give you the option to "bump" subscribers out of your local area. While you cannot use the bump option until the week of November 7th, 2022, you still get to add those two postal codes IMMEDIATELY and choose postal codes on a first come, first served basis (which assumes the postal code does not already have 3 agensts listed in it). You can accumulate these bonuses! If you refer 6 people, and those 6 all do the tutorial, you get 12 postal codes added to your account, and they will be considered paid to the end of 2024. REMEMBER: For the Next 6 months we are offering an important alternative bonus. If you don't care about postal codes or term4sale, then those same 6 referrals who do the tutorial to get 6 free months will get you 6 X 6 months added to your subscription. Once again, if you did 6 successful referral that would add 3 free years to your subscription. There is no limit to the referrals. If you refer more, and your referrals do the tutorial, you get ANOTHER 6 free months for each referral. The only limit is August 1st. If it is August 1st or later, you will have missed your opportunity. EASY, go to this web page: Remember: There is NO limit. How you don't sit down and put in the name of EVERY fellow life insurance agent you know would be a mystery to me. I guarantee you that when this SPECIAL referral opportunity ends on July 31st, you will be kicking yourself for not having taken advantage of it. Is there a catch? YES there is always a catch. Your referral has to take the 30 day FREE trial email that we have sent to them, and they must DO THE TUTORIAL. If they don't do the tutorial, then they don't get 6 free months. If they don't do the tutorial, and get the 6 free months, then YOU don't get 6 free months. You can help this process by making sure your referral knows that to get the 6 free months they have to do a tutorial. To review, there are two benefits for the prospective subscriber when they do the tutorial:
2. They get the software for 6 free months I have said many times that if someone doesn't learn how to use the software, then they won't use the software. If they don't use the software, they won't find out that it will make them money. If it doesn't make them money, then why would they buy it? If they do get the 6 free months, there are 4 things that come FREE for those 6 free months:
2. A free subscription to Compulife Basic 3. Web quotes for their website 4. 3 Postal Codes At Term4sale One more catch. The person referred cannot have had a subscription to Compulife in the last 24 months. (a subscription includes a 4 month free subscription) And the biggest catch of all - you can't get any of this if your don't make a referral. Enterprising subscribers will be in a position to get a lot of free software, for a long time, by simply digging through their list of fellow agents and pitching them on the value of doing a Compulife Free Trial and Tutorial. And even explaining the value of Compulife is VERY SIMPLE. Just sent your potential referrals a personal email with a link to this: So for 10 minutes of homework, your referral gets to find out for a period of 6 months if those Compulife subscribers are telling the truth. You're a subscriber, you already know - they don't. And here's the last catch which may be fatal to the concept. Many subscriber do NOT want fellow agents finding out just how good Compulife is, because if those fellow agents know what you know, they might end up one day competing with you. OK, I get that and if that is your logic then I can see how you would want to keep the big secret all to yourself. But for those of you who are NOT worried about other agents being better than you, I think this 40th year anniversary special is VERY SPECIAL. We have NEVER offered a deal this good to our subscribers, and if you want to hang around and wait for the 50th anniversary special, to see if there might be an even better deal, then go ahead. But depending on how hard you work at making referrals, you may be able to get to the 50th year special without having to pay for software (20 successful referrals get you there). The following is the current order for new work that we will be doing in 2022:
Overhaul Of Current Product Data Files Introduction of Compulife Basic Plus (with Pick 12) Anyone with questions about any of these upcoming projects can call Bob Barney to discuss: (888) 798-3488
Please don't email me essay questions, just call. If I'm not in, email me your phone number, I'll call you. These planned objectives will easily consume our programming time during 2022. The good news is that once the product data files have been converted, and we have introduced the new CQS.EXE, and upgraded our internet engine to use the new data files, Compulife will be turning it's full attention to our web based, Compulife Basic software. The long term goal is to have a web based product that does everything our PC based software does. |