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October 14, 2001 at 08:00 PM
Reader Blasts Articles On Buying Term Life Online
To The Editor:
I read Ara Trembly’s Aug. 20 article, “Term Life Price Quotes On The Net,” where he makes the same gross mistakes and assumptions as in a previous article in the March 26 issue.
As a vendor of a term quote engine, we deal with hundreds of Web sites that sell term insurance, some of which he mentions in his article. It’s obvious by his comments that he doesn’t have a clear grasp of how the whole thing works. It pains us so to read his article…his research is so underdone and he calls it journalism.
I think it may be helpful for him to understand how these sites get their “Quote Engines” and how “Quote Engines” work. He mentions several times that the quotes are from the carriers. They are actually not from the carriers but from the agent or agency that supports the site.
The agent or agency has control over the assumptions made by the quote engines that generate the number for each carrier. Often times the engine assumes a rating class or doesn’t support a class that another site offers and therefore you will see different rates for the same carrier. The agent has chosen to quote online based on assumptions, usually because they don’t have enough information about the client to create an exact quote. Many agents feel that if you ask all the questions needed the client will get bored and not ask for the quote.
Once again it all comes down to how the agent sells the insurance. If the agent is just trying to get leads they will most likely not ask a lot of information and default to a standard or preferred class. Some agents default to a Super Preferred Class (not always ethical). Other agents think it valuable to ask all the questions necessary to get an exact quote and are willing to lose clients with short attention spans.
