Here is a quick run-down on what you will find in this bulletin: November 4,…
U.S. Update News August 2004
We plan to post the September 2004 Internet monthly update to our six monthly update web sites on August 30th.
The September disk update will be processed Monday, August 30th and and the disks will be shipped on the 31st. You should have the disk update by September 2nd.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Subscribers who are still receiving disks can save up to $100 per year by switching to updates by Internet. Please read the last section of this bulletin for complete details. Don’t wait for your next invoice to make the change. Compulife will bonus your subscription renewal deadline for switching from disks to internet.
The only downside for our disk update customers is that the system will squawk after the first of the month, complaining that it needs the new monthly update. You simply click OK and move forward to do quotes.
This change will help us because a number of companies typically introduce first of the month changes at the end of the preceding month. Frequently this puts us in a squeeze at the end of the month. It has happened on more than one occasion that we have already preparing our monthly update, have gone into production, when a company calls to tell us that they are sending us new rates for the first of the month. This means that only those who get a midmonth update get those rates.
Those who use the DOS program this month, and who select the Joint Life option, will find that they are being linked into our Windows software. From that point you can select Joint Life and continue to quote.
As long as the DOS software does not require significant change to keep up with the improvements that we are making to our database and structure, we will continue to support DOS software.
Having said that, rest assured that we are approaching the day when DOS software will no longer be provided. Given that, there are two things you need to do:
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- 1. Learn to use the Windows software. If you are not using the Windows program, it is on your computer and you should make a second icon so that you can run Windows. To do this simply select “Joint Life” from the DOS menu which will start the Windows program. At the top of the Red menu click on “Options”. The second last option on this menu is “Create Desktop Shortcut”. When you click on this an icon will be created on your desktop.
2. If there is something the DOS software does, that you think the Windows software can’t do, PLEASE CALL Bob Barney at (800) 798-3488. It may be that you simply don’t know how to do it in Windows. Alternatively, if there is a change we can make to Windows, to accommodate your particular use, we are happy to consider it.
The new category will be introduced with one of the first midmonth updates in August. Currently we have four companies in the database and are ready and anxious to add more.
You will note that the Enter Client Information window now has a province selection which will inform the system which tax rate to use. If you do not select a province, the U/L products that require the tax calculation will not quote.
The only company that we are aware of that builds the tax into their premium, making the premium FULLY guaranteed, in all provinces, is Transamerica Life. We think RBC may also do the same but have not yet received the data they are sending. For most other company products, if the provincial tax increases, the minimum premium can be increased which means those minimum premiums have a non-guaranteed element. An asterisk will appear next to such premiums and they will appear in yellow on the comparison screen.
One of the added benefits of the Province Selection is that we can now code the availability of products by province. If there is a product that is NOT sold in your province, let us know. We can turn the product off for that province rather than you having to delete it.
Because these U/L policies require the payment of a “minimum premium” which may be greater than the T100 cost itself, the comparison will be based upon the minimum premium (the least you can pay).
Comparisons will not examine cash values or accumulations and will not permit you to enter additional funds into the quote. We have no interest in going down that road. The complexity of calculating U/L values makes the job of exactly matching life company U/L values almost impossible. If you wish to show a product beyond the basic minimum premium, we strongly recommend that you use the company’s own illustration software. We intend to stick to the minimum and level lifetime costs as the basis of comparison for this new category.
In that regard we would caution:
If you need an updated engine, please e-mail barneyrl@compulife.com with that request.
WARNING: If your listing at term4sale.com does not have a link, it will be a less prominent listing than those who do. It is comparable to a one line listing in a yellow page ad, versus a “boxed” listing.
The more prominent listing at term4sale is available at NO CHARGE!
IMPORTANT: While there is no charge for this link, there are some conditions. Make sure you read this entire section and understand the conditions.
The first condition to having term4sale.com link to your website is that the website must also have (in the fine print if you want) a link to www.term4sale.com.
The second condition is that the web page must be visible to internet search engines.
When we first announced this option in our June midmonth update we had a few subscribers call immediately. They were excited about the new option and had already gone ahead and added links to term4sale.com. After investigation we discovered that the subscribers had web pages that were not .html pages on their server but were pages generated from internet programs/databases. In other words, as far as the search engines were concerned, the pages don’t exist. Having run into this with a couple of subscribers, and having discovered that those subscribers had little if any control over the web pages on their site, we have come up with a remedy for the problem; please keep reading.
With respect to the www.term4sale.com on your web page, the link does not have to be prominent. We don’t care if the consumer or any consumer uses it. The reason that we want the link is in order to drive up the number of web pages that point to term4sale.com, which will strengthen and improve Term4Sale’s search position on popular internet search engines such as Google. That could mean more traffic for term4sale, which could easily lead to more business for you.
That’s why it is vital that your web page, which we link your term4sale listing to, be a page that is visible to the internet.
If it turns out your web site has been developed using a database system, which makes the content of your pages invisible to search engines, you do not qualify to have your web page included in your listing at term4sale.com. To address this, we will require that you create and place a visible web page on your site in order to be able to get your link from term4sale. Actually, we think it is smart to have a special page for your term4sale link anyway; please keep reading.
In addition to the reasons mentioned above, it would be a very good idea to give serious consideration to a “unique” web page for this link. Rather than simply going to your web site’s home page, a separate page that anticipates the arrival of the consumer from the term4sale site would improve your chances that the consumer will contact you. After all, a consumer looking for an agent having visited term4sale is looking for term insurance, not all the other things that your web site may talk about. This does not mean that your special web page cannot talk about your web site, or offer a link to it, because it should. The point is that you should target your page to the reason why the consumer visited it in the first place.
There is another reason for this special web page. Frequently we ask subscribers who are listed at www.term4sale.com if they are getting calls as a result of their listing. Many say they don’t know. What that means is that they don’t have any way to tell where the contact is coming from. If you design your special term4sale page properly, you should be able to devise ways to determine that the contact has come from a term4sale visitor. (such as adding a page counter)
DID YOU READ THAT!
You can now have a basic website/page for $99 per year!
NOW WHAT IS THE EXCUSE?
You can have a website for only $99 and you don’t have one? WHY NOT? What possible reason can you have for not wanting a website?
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- – your name and picture
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- – your contact information, address, e-mail, fax, etc.
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- – a short bio with your background and experience
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- – a list of products you sell
- – etc., etc., etc.
Assuming that this is the page you want term4sale.com linked to, then you should consider having comments about term4sale and why you are the agent a consumer should deal with. And most important, in order to qualify for your link at term4sale.com, make sure you have a small link to www.term4sale.com.
Please feel free to contact Bob Barney at 800-798-3488 if you have any questions.
If you would like a link at term4sale.com to your website, a link that can be seen by search engines, we recommend that you consider writing a testimonial. The “Testimonial” option is now activated at term4sale.com. Check it out and see what other agents have to say about our service. Note the links next to the author’s name. If you write a testimonial, we will be happy to add your link there and the page is visible to search engines.
And a visible link to your page is important because term4sale.com is a highly ranked domain name. We are advised that this carries weight in the search engine world.
As we announced last month, another feature added to the system was that your program reports to the monthly update website when you are downloading a monthly update. That new reporting system is also working extremely well. Each download of a monthly update is being recorded into our on-line database which tells us what customer (serial number ONLY) obtained an update. Our system also records the ISP that was used by the subscriber to download the update, when they downloaded the update and how long it took to download.
A preliminary review of the downloads turned up a small number of agency subscribers (Standard License) who appear to be exceeding the permitted number of computers that they are allowed to install Compulife on. The standard license agreement permits 5 computers in one location (Standard License). Some appear to be exceeding that limit.
This limit does not affect Personal users who can place the software on any machine that they use or that is used for them. While it is hard to imagine that a personal user would need to download and put Compulife on more than 5 computers, an initial review of download results do not turn up any problems with personal users.
Before we jump to conclusions about the problems with agency customers, we are adding the machine ID to the information that is reported to our database. In other words, if you take a monthly update on a machine, then for some reason get the same monthly update on the same machine, that is NOT a violation of our agreement. We assume you must have had some kind of problem that required another download. Because a number of machines can share the same IP, we were not able to tell if it was the same computer getting an update, or two different computers on the same network. The individual computer ID will now tell us which specific machine got the update.
If you are an agency, and have only one license which allows 5 machines, and you are exceeding or need to exceed 5 machines, a sub- license can be added for $199. The sub-license allows another 5 machines (in the same location). If you need to add more than 10, another $199 covers 5 more and so on.
Please make sure you are being fair to Compulife as we will be policing this more carefully. I have a hard time believing that an insurance agency, which needs our system on more than 5 computers, can’t afford the additional sub-license(s). Compulife is a small company, with a small number of employees. If you avoid paying us what’s fair, we personally feel the impact. Given how hard we work, for the little we charge, we take bootlegging of software very personally.
We have also eliminated the “Finish” window which terminates the entry of data into the Analyzer. In its place we have put a “Finish” button on what would have been the last page prior to the previous finish page. This will save one move and click of the mouse.
Currently disk updates contain BOTH Windows and DOS software. This means that the disk updates contain more files than we would need to ship if we were only providing Windows software. Further, because the majority of our customers now update by Internet, and because disk capacity is not an issue for monthly updates by internet, and because we prefer you to get updates by Internet, we will be removing the DOS program from our disk updates effective December 1, 2004.
This is particularly helpful in Canada, which will cut disk shipments from 3 disks to only two.
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- First, switch to getting updates by Internet. Monthly updates by internet will continue to receive the DOS and Windows program until the 3rd quarter of 2005. We expect the early part of 2006 to be a very busy time for us, and we intend to move everyone who still uses DOS software, to our Windows software, by the end of 2005.
Second, learn to use the Windows software.
Actually, we recommend both because as we noted, we will not be supporting DOS software after the 3rd quarter of 2005. By that point all Compulife subscribers will need to be using the Windows program.
Warning: The December 1, 2004 monthly disk update (NOT INTERNET UPDATE) will have a GO.EXE file that will not run the DOS software, it will simply start the Windows software. Effective the DOS software will be removed from your computer on December 1, 2004. Once again, this only applies to those who get monthly updates by disk.
For those doing monthly updates by Internet, we rely on three other web site to supply monthly updates. These are automatically checked and used by our automatic Internet update software.
1. Switch to obtaining monthly updates by Internet.
Not only will you eliminate the expense and hassle of returning disks, you will save $100 per year in subscription fees.
To switch to Internet monthly updates, go to our web page www.compulife.com and select the last menu choice “Forms, applications, instruction tutorials, etc.” Under the section “License Agreements” you will need to select and complete a new License Agreement for the type of license you have. After you have printed the new agreement, please read it, especially the part where you agree that you have successfully downloaded and processed our “mid-month updates”. If you haven’t done that before, call us and we’ll be happy to step you through the procedure. It’s easy.
2. Disk Purchase Program
The other way to avoid returning the disks and the disk box each month is to pre-purchase them for $21 per year ($1.75 per month). Once you do that you can keep them for future reference, throw them away or return them for a credit (once each year) when you are invoiced for the following year. $21 costs you less than mailing back disks each month.