Online Calculator for Life Insurance Rate Quotes
Free Zip Code Shopping Tool to Instantly Compare Term Life Premiums
Oct 30, 2009
This review focuses on the sample life insurance premium comparisons available to consumers at Compulife’s flagship Term4Sale website.
Serving the U.S. life insurance market since 1987, Compulife is a high-tech company that specializes in software applications that compare life insurance rates.
Compulife has no direct financial interest in life insurance sales. Rather, the system provider earns revenues through subscription services sold to agents and brokers who depend on the latest premium statistics from life insurance companies competing for sales. The full-service Compulife database system includes rate book data from more than 125 life insurers.
Individual Insurability Rate Comparison Factors
The Term4Sale home page is user-friendly because simplifies the tasks required to receive an immediate online life insurance rate comparison.
After entering their zip code, consumers click on radial buttons and dropdown lists to identify their gender, birth date, status as a smoker or non-smoker and state of health. The free version of the online life insurance quote software is limited to applicants in average to exceptional health. Presumably, the full-service subscription database includes rates for applicants in below average and poor health – and will require more detailed medical underwriting questions to support rates for riskier health categories.
On the other hand, fewer choices in the free online database means that data entry for the free rate comparison online tool is fast and easy.
Life Insurance Coverage Rate Comparison Factors
Consumers only have to click on 4 more fields that specify the coverage to be priced. That information deals with the type of term life insurance, the premium payment mode (annual, semi-annual, quarterly or monthly), the coverage amount (from $25,000 to $5 million) and the minimum financial strength rating for a life insurance provider.
While quotes are restricted to term life insurance, users can specify a 5 to 30 year policy period for that coverage. Or, they can choose an age from 65 to 75 up to which term life rates are guaranteed.
Perhaps the most powerful choice is the drop-down box item that specifies 6 different policy durations, from 5 to 30 years. Beside the level term period field is a hyperlink to a summary page that explains why longer policy periods usually result in smaller accumulated premium costs over the long term.
Online Life Insurance Calculated Rates
While data entry for the online life insurance rate calculator takes about 10 seconds, the premium comparison results display almost instantly after users click the Compare Now button.
Listed on screen is a table with a heading for the type of term insurance. Starting with the insurance company that offers the lowest rate, each row in the table identifies the name of the insurer, its financial strength rating, the product name for quoted life insurance policy and the applicant’s health class. The last column in the table shows the corresponding premium rate from a specific insurance carrier.
A rate comparison of an individual type of insurance like 20 year term will show the rates from 49 insurance companies. For the single-entry comparison of terms from 5 to 30 years, only 6 life insurance companies are listed for each of the 6 policy durations.
Critique of Free Web Life Insurance Calculator
The free website calculator has several areas for improvement that Compulife’s full-service subscription software may or may not address.
First, some of the largest life insurance companies are missing from the list of quoted rates. Names of industry leaders like MetLife, AFLAC and Manulife are absent from the rate comparisons.
Also, the design of the free life quote website seems to be more from an agent or broker perspective. The most valuable tool for saving premium dollars is somewhat hidden. The Click Here button near the bottom of the premium rate comparison screen opens a second window that displays how much consumers can save under the 6 lowest insurance providers over a 40-year period. To communicate these cost savings more effectively, this particular feature should be moved to the home page of the Term4Sale website.
Including whole life insurance rate comparisons would result in even more savings for some consumers.
Zip Code Rate Calculator or State-Specific Reference Tool
Finally, the free rate comparison calculator seems to return identical results for zip codes from the same state. For example, Buffalo zip code 14201 displays premium rates and life insurance providers that match those for New York City zip code 10007. One would think that the free Term4Sale calculator should use a drop-down list by state instead.
However, the results page of the premium rate comparison includes a List of Agents button. This feature calls up the names of agents and brokers who subscribe to the latest and fully featured Compulife software, and whose addresses are closest to the user-entered zip code.
The Term4Sale life insurance rate calculator is a valuable educational tool. Consumers should continue to comparison shop with life insurance quotes from other providers. Still, the free rate comparison website enables users to quickly benchmark the lowest life insurance rates sold in the regions where they live.
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