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COMPULIFE®
Software Inc.
(800) 798-3488
Update News for May 2007
Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin:
New Categories in Compulife's U.S. Version
April Contest - Here's the Winner
Last Call for Palm Zire 31's at $69
Windows Mobile Version for Phones
Automated Updates for QuickQuoter?
25th Year in Business
These topics will be dealt with in more detail throughout this bulletin.
The following is from our U.S. bulletin this month but we would like our Canadian subscribers to give it their consideration. The categories for level term to 65, 70 and 75 have been in our Canadian software for years although only a very small group of products are available in those categories. Further those products are not particularly competitive. If you run a 20 year term for a 45 year old, and then compare that premium with a level term to 65 product, the 20 year is clearly more competitive. The same is true for 20 year term versus level term to 70 for a 50 year old and 20 year term versus level term to 75 for a 55 year old.
Compulife is now taking the position with the U.S. industry, and we will be actively taking the position with the Canadian industry, that consumers need access to competitively priced longer level term products. Compulife will be campaigning in Canada, as we will be in the U.S., to encourage life insurance companies to develop "level to retire" term products - particularly for younger people. Next month we will have more to report on this subject but this will serve as a head's up for subscribers (and life companies who subscribe).
The May 2007 U.S. edition of Compulife contains 3 new premium categories:
This roll out of new categories is ahead of the curve. The new categories are part of a product agenda that Compulife is actively advocating and promoting. It is fair to say that Compulife has created new product categories before they even exist.
Compulife began this process by first issuing a challenge to U.S. life insurance companies. You can read more about that by going to this discussion page at www.americaninsurancebroker.com:
Make sure you read the discussion which follows the initial announcement and feel free to add your comments.
As noted in the discussion, the challenge was initially issued by e-mail to a large number of life insurance companies.
The next step was the development of some new content (an article) that Compulife will be adding to the www.term4sale.com. We would appreciate it if those agents who are listed at www.term4sale.com would take a minute and review that article:
NOTE to Canadian Subscribers: A Canadianized version of this article will be made available at www.term4sale.ca sometime during May or June.
Your comments on the article are welcome and you can post those by clicking here:
As noted in the discussion, some life companies have contacted me to discuss the challenge. I would characterize the initial reaction as very positive. As we anticipated most can respond quickly by giving us premium information for their no lapse U/L products. A number of companies confirmed that their no-lapse products permit coverage and premium guarantees to be dialed in to give coverage and guaranteed premiums to 65, 70 and 75. The new categories in Compulife will include no lapse U/L products.
As we move forward we anticipate that life companies will actually develop level term products that fit these categories. We also anticipate that term based products, at younger ages, can be priced more competitively than no-lapse alternatives.
This contest is now closed and our winner was: Katherine Thompson Congratulations - Katherine had already purchased a Palm from us and so a credit will be issued to her account.
Compulife stock of Palm Zire 31's is now down to less than 20. Because we will be keeping a handful of these for parts (in order to service our extended warranties on these Palms), there are only about 15 left for sale. If you want one of these before they are gone on ebay, you need to act quickly.
Here's the e-mail offer we initially made to subscribers:
Last year I bought 100 Palm Zire 31 PDA's for our subscribers. The reason I grabbed the bulk lot was that the Zire 31 is a cheap, compact Palm that runs Compulife very nicely. I knew at the price that I got these for that we could retail them for $69 to $79. At that price I was certain that Compulife subscribers, who didn't own a PDA, would want Compulife in their pocket We are now closing out our stock of these units. We are now selling them individually on ebay. IMPORTANT: These PDA's are bringing the very same $69 price that we have been offering them to you for. That's how good our offer to subscribers has been.
MORE IMPORTANT: The 45 day warranty that I am offering on ebay is NOT as good as the warranty that I am offering to you. Here are the details:
Since we bought this lot of Zire 31's two things have changed. These
factors make it time to sell the majority of our Palm stock on ebay:
And of course there are a number of agents who want to wait for
better technology. And while you're waiting you are missing out on sales
opportunities that you could have enjoyed if you had used the Palm. And
look, these Palm's even double up as MP3 players. So if you upgrade to a
newer better device in a year or two, give it to one of the kids or
grandkids - they'll enjoy it.
I hate the idea that a bunch of strangers will benefit from the good deal that we got on these 100 units and that our friends and subscribers missed out.
You can find an order form for the Zire 31 PDA here.
Feel free to reply to this e-mail with any questions you may
have |
As we pointed out last month, there is a new generation of Windows Mobile phones which have been recently hitting the market. Compulife has completed work on a version of our program which works perfectly on these new phones. We made some additional improvements to that software last month and we believe the new program is running quite well.
Just like the PDA software that we have introduced to this point, the new phone program is included FREE with your subscription. And just like the PDA software we have introduced, the new phone software is transferred to your SD memory card when you use the Master Menu option:
Once you update your card, and place it into the Windows Mobile phone, the new program will show up on the SD file list as:
When you select and run the program you will be asked by Windows Mobile to confirm that you want to run the program - go ahead and do that. At that point the first page of the two page client screen appears. All the client screen questions are entered using the 5 way navigation button.
IMPORTANT: The new generation of phones have no stylus input and you don't need it with Compulife. Compulife's entire program is operated with just the 5 way navigation button. Think of it as the Compulife video game.
Once the first page of the client screen is entered, the right button takes you to the second page of the client screen. When that is completed a right button does the comparison. You move from field to field using the up and down arrows, and you select choices with the center button.
We have tested the new software on the following 3 phones. NOTE: Click on any of the phones listed below for more information about the phone:
These phones all run Compulife perfectly.
We have recently seen price offers on these phone below $100 in combination with phone and date package programs. As we suspected, this market is likely to continue to heat up. We also expect more versions of these phones moving forward. In this case, we are happy to be on the leading edge of the technology.
IMPORTANT: You don't have to have this data service to use the phone as a phone or as a Windows PDA. You can still have your daytimer functions, contact lists, etc - all the things you expect from a PDA.
MORE IMPORTANT: You can quote Compulife on these phones without having the more expensive data package.
NOTE: All of the above phones use the newer, smaller SD cards. The Motorola Q used a MINI SD card whereas the Dash and Blackjack use MICRO SD cards. Compulife can talk directly to any and all of these cards once they have been placed into USB adapters and plugged into the computer.
Remember, Compulife's new phone software is FREE with your subscription.
Insurance Squared customers, using Compulife's on-line term quote engine, are now allowed to host QuickerQuoter updates for FREE.
And if you use Insurance Squared to host your QuickerQuoter updates, Compulife will maintain those updates on the Insurance Squared server for FREE.
For QuickerQuoter purchasers it means that all you will need to do is e-mail a link to the page and/or place a link to the page on your web site. Your page will look like either of these two samples:
NOTE: The www.compulife.us server used for the above examples is the server provided by Insurance Squared. Compulife rents space on that server, just as we rent space from 6 other Internet Providers for our services to Compulife subscribers.
In the next few months we would like to introduce a more automated update procedure for QuickerQuoter updates, but this would be in conjunction with the Insurance Squared update hosting. If we are able to do so, the QuickerQuoter program would be able to alert your agents that new updates are available, and the system can get those updates automatically.
NOTE: The decision to put automatic updates into our QuickerQuoter software will be dependent on the number of QuickerQuoter buyers who elect to use Insurance Squared to host those updates. If there is an insufficient number of agencies using Insurance Squared for those updates there is no point offering automatic updating. Updates will continue to be manual updates just as they are now.
If you do NOT use Insurance Squared as your on-line term quote provider, you can do so for ONLY $179 per year. Once you do your QuickerQuoter update web page and update hosting is FREE.
ALSO IMPORTANT: Insurance Squared now offers an on-line forms library option which can be added to that on-line term quote service for only $120 per year. Click Here to obtain full details.
QuickerQuoter is a Compulife-like comparison software program containing only the companies that the agency selects. The agency pays a single, low cost license fee and can then provide unlimited copies of the software to all its brokers for FREE.
Click Here for more information on QuickerQuoter. The web page contains a FREE sample of QuickerQuoter.
NOTE: The products and companies included in the FREE samples of QuickerQuoter are up-to-date and current. The companies we have selected are those companies which have provided Compulife with their forms for our Forms Library. If you are a life company, and would like to be added, please call Bob Barney at (888) 798-3488.
IMPORTANT: FREE software for your brokers.
THINK ABOUT IT: If you don't give this software to your brokers for FREE, then maybe your brokers will get it from your competitors for FREE. And then your brokers will be quoting the companies that your competitors want them to quote.
The agencies who act sooner will be the agencies to benefit the most. To date over a dozen agencies have acquired QuickerQuoter.
Just as FREE PDA software comes with Compulife, QuickerQuoter comes with FREE PDA software. So before you say, "But we already have on-line quoting software for our brokers for FREE", please pay attention to the fact that this software includes FREE PDA software.
Some agencies have told me they don't think that's important because their agents aren't using PDA's. There are some points I would like to make:
First, more and more agents are buying Palm and/or Windows Mobile phones. Those phones ARE PDA's and they can run QuickerQuoter. Do you want to be the one pointing that out to your agent, or do you want your competitor pointing it out?
Third, read some of the following testimonies that Compulife has received from subscribers using insurance comparisons on their PDA:
The point is this: Agents are going to find out about this capability - one way or the other. The sooner they do, the sooner they will make money with it. And that means they will not only be making money for themselves but for the agency they do business with. Do you think agents will appreciate the agency that was first to bring that to their attention?
Compulife incorporated in Canada in October 1982. That means we are now in our 25th year in business.
We note this to first and foremost express our thanks to our loyal subscribers (thousands of subscribers) many of whom have been with us for a majority of that time. It goes without saying that we could not have done it without you. Many, many thanks.
THIS MONTH'S HIDDEN SPECIAL: Get a 64meg SD card and an SD card adapter for only $10 - FREE shipping. The card and adapter is all you need to put Compulife on most PDA's. But it also gives you an inexpensive "Jump" or "Thumb" drive that lets you easily transfer up to 64 megabytes of files between computers. This special offer is over on April 27, 2007.
We are using these specials to help underline our longstanding commitment to this marketplace and our subscribers - a commitment that has never changed and a commitment that is as great today as it has ever been.
Two things are true about companies that have been around this long - they are either resting on their laurels or they are continuing to push forward aggressively. I think it is clear that the latter applies to Compulife.
Here are just three recent examples:
We have recently rolled out a Forms Library which introduces an innovative web library / local library system for automatically storing forms on your own computer - making retrieval fast and easy - regardless of web connection problems.
We have introduced QuickerQuoter for agencies, giving agencies our comparison technology (including PDA technology) which they can turn around and provide to their agents for FREE.
We draw this to your attention to underline that Compulife appreciates your business and we will continue to EARN your business, by improving and expanding our product offerings.