Click Here to Print This Bulletin

Update News for September 2013    

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

• Critical Illness Products
  
  
• Life Insurance Claim Denials For Fraud
  
  

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

Canada Life first provided their Critical Illness product rates to us in May 2012. We advised that we could not add the products until we have the specimen contracts, which we received in January 2013. I then added the products which they wanted to test before going live.

In May 2013, having not given us a green light to introduce the previous products, the company provided us with new rates which we quickly added. The company is still testing those.

In fairness, Canada Life did find that we did not have the correct medical underwriting requirements for their CI products. The reason we did not yet have that was because we only had medical requirements for their life products (no Canada Life CI in our system to that point).

We subsequently (within a couple of days) set up completely separate medical requirements for the CI products, that are different from life products. Incidentally, if you find a life company whose CI underwriting requirements are not in our CI quoting system, please feel free to email us the company's latest underwriting requirements. Not only will we add them to the new CI medical underwriting tables, but we will give you a 10% coupon for your assistance.

Subsequently Canada Life had problems with some of the terminology that we were using for those medical requirements. After a few weeks of back and forth and making changes to accomodate their requests we seemed to get that taken care of.

Most recently the company turned up the fact that we were quoting the wrong waiver of premiums. Upon further inspection it turned out that the waiver premium rate files that Canada Life originally gave us were wrong. The new waivers were then provided by the company. We entered them quickly (same day) and they are now checking those.

I share all this to share my frustration at getting these products added. It's like watching molasses run in November. I want to let you know that we are not the reason for the lengthy delays in getting these products placed in our software. Last year the company (at the same time) provided us with the CI product rates for GWL. We were not given specimen contracts for GWL CI and we still don't have specimen contracts for GWL. Needless to say, we haven't touched on those subjects yet, a year later, for fear it may delay things further. I don't even know if those rates are still current but right now my focus is on trying to get the Canada Life CI products released to our customers.

Generally, when a company provides us with rates, they are entered into test software within a couple of days (at the maximum). Test versions of the software are then provided to the companies so that they can review what we have done. It can often take a company a couple of weeks to review the rates, but most of the time that is well in advance of when the new rates are actually going to be introduced to the market.

Dejardins recently rolled out a significant number of new CI product combinations and we worked quickly (over a couple of days) to get those added. We then provided test software to the company so that they could check the rates. We then advised that we could not introduce the products to our software until we have specimen/sample contracts. In previous emails they had told us that the specimen contracts would follow sometime later.

Desjardins responded to my email and flatly said that they had changed their minds and would not be providing specimen contracts. I just as flatly responded that their products would not be added to our system, and I added that I wished that I had know about it before taking a couple of days to enter all the products.

At that point the company began to cross examine my position and wanted to know why and when I had taken that position. They seemed to not comprehend the reason for such a position. I then gave them links to the original bulletins where I set out that having specimen contracts were a condition for any CI product to be added to our software. After a period of time had passed, the company provided the specimen contracts. I am bewildered, given the differences in coverage between the products of different companies, why that should be an issue open to discussion.

For some this may seem like an unnecessary rant, but I tend to get pretty stressed when new products and rates are released and we are caught being unable to include them in our software. Our subscribers are left to wonder if there is something wrong with us. These recent CI product experiences have proven to be some of the worst delays that I can remember, and that is after 31 years for doing this.

I would like to reiterate, for all who may not know, that Compulife does not charge life companies any money to have their products placed in our software. It is, for all intents and purposes, free advertising for life companies. More important, it is a tremendous convenience to brokers to have the information of multiple companies at their fingertips in a single location. When companies delay or not provide information in a timely manner, it's not a happy experience for us because it's not a happy experience for our subscribers.

I wonder at times, if the people in the marketing departments of some life companies actually care if the company ever sells a product. I had one life company rep recently call to inquire about our software and they went on to say they never heard of us. After having provided us with the rates, and not having provided us with correct waivers (no, not Canada Life) it did not take long for that person to find out that they were in the minority. I got the distinct impression they got more than one incident occur regarding the waivers, and they were in a rush to get the correct waivers put in the software, which we did the same day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If there is a product that is NOT in Compulife, and you would like to see it there, don't hesitate to get involved. If you can provide the rates or bring pressure to bear upon the company to get us that information, we will be happy to reward your effort by adding the product(s) and seeing that you get a 10% coupon as thanks for your assistance. Coupons are provided to the first person through the door with that specific assistance.

And while I don't feel responsible for these delays we are experiencing, I feel I need to explain and apologize for those delays.

As we promised last month, we have prepared a report on Life Insurance Claim Denials For Fraud which you will find here:

Subscribers Feedback - Claim Denials

The report contains the comments and feedback from subscribers, and my own comments. Further, we have added some additional links and information to the report.

I will continue to update that report as additional comments or information is received. If you have something to add, we'd like to hear from you.