My term life insurance will expire soon. Not technically expire but the renewal rate will skyrocket after the level-premium period comes to an end. Since I’m still going to work a few more years, I want to have life insurance for some more years to make sure my family is really financially secure if I die.
I’m following my own playbook How to Buy Life Insurance. I wrote it 7 years ago. It still works for the most part.
I called the agent who sold me my current policy years ago. He said he doesn’t sell to individuals any more. Instead, his business now only focuses on employee benefits for businesses.
I needed a new agent. My first stop was to term4sale.com. I got quotes as usual. After I clicked on “Find An Agent” I noticed something different. The phone numbers of the 3 agents given to me were all toll-free numbers, not local numbers. Some have websites. When I checked their websites, they were all out of state, far away, not local agents.
I live in a major metro area. There should be plenty of local agents around. I checked a random zip code in a different major metro area. Same thing. Toll free numbers, out-of-state agents.
There’s nothing wrong with working with an agent out of state. These days we have online bank accounts, online brokerage accounts, and online auto insurance such as GEICO. I said one should find a financial advisor outside one’s local area. However, I find it disingenuous when term4sale.com says all over the place:
Click on [the Find An Agent button] for the names of 3 COMPULIFE subscribers near you.
I clicked on that button and they are not near me!
High-volume Internet agents have taken over term4sale listings. Local agents can’t compete without their scale. My previous agent exited the market altogether.
What if you still want a local agent? The premium is going to be the same whether you buy the policy from a local agent or an out-of-state agent.
I picked Ohio National as my preferred insurance company. It has good ratings and low premiums for the type of policy I wanted. I went to its website and I used the “Find a Rep” link there to send a message asking for a referral.
A day later I got an email from a local agent. She gave me a quote, which was the same from term4sale. I asked a few questions. She answered them. She didn’t try to sell me any variable, universal, or whole life policy. She normally represents New York Life. She didn’t try to steer me to New York Life either.
She filled out an application for me. I signed. That was it. Easy.
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Jonathan Bunjer says
I just ran a quote and 1 of the three agents listed is local to my area (Eastern Iowa). Will see who follows up with me.
Robert Barney says
Full disclosure, my name is Bob Barney and I am the owner of http://www.term4sale.com. I do not sell life insurance.
Actually the number of local agents being listed at http://www.term4sale.com has steadily increased. Last year we increased the number of free zip codes listings an agent could obtain with their purchase of our life insurance comparison software. The agent comparison software for agents costs the agent a modest $180 per year. Previously we had given the agent 2 FREE zip code listings, they now get 3.
Those FREE zip code listings can be used by the agent to bump and replace agents who have paid to be listed in that agent’s local area. The goal is to get more local agents in the most popular zip codes in their local area. Paid listings are slowly being replaced with local free listings.
Agents buying additional listings are also facing new limits on how many listings we allow them to buy. Last year the number had been reduced to 100, it is being reduced this year to 90. The purpose is to make more of the better zip codes available to local agents.
The ultimate goal remains: provide lists of local agents. However, in zip codes where we do not have agents using our comparison software, we are happy to let agents pay to be listed where they are licensed and able to sell in that state. Yes, the toll free number next to an agent in the listing is a BIG clue about local versus non-local and we emphasize it on the site.
The hope has been to have lots of independent agents, in lots of locations, buying our life insurance comparison software and being listed at http://www.term4sale.com. In a perfect world we would have so many agents involved that there would be no zip codes available to buy.
The problem, and it is a big problem, is that MOST life insurance agents don’t shop and compare, and so the total number of agents willing to invest in comparison software is relatively small. Given that finding a truly independent agent is quite challenging, the fact that you can get lists of such people is quite valuable, no matter how far away they may be.
There is no doubt that consumers are best served by life agents who are committed to shopping and comparing. As the emphasis on that increases, we hope more agents will buy our comparison software and more agents will be listed at http://www.term4sale.com and we have better coverage of local areas across the country.
I think we have made great progress in growing the value of the FREE service that we give the public. I consider http://www.term4sale.com to be a perfect marriage of the roles played by Kelly Blue Book (comparing prices for cars) with Angie’s List (locate service providers). Term4Sale helps the consumer find the most competitive products available and, if they don’t already have an agent, locate independent agents devoted to marketing competitive alternatives.
Paid listings are a way to prime the pump, and as the pump runs more strongly we can reduce the priming. Term4Sale may not be perfect, or where we want it to ultimately be, but we are doing everything reasonable to make it better. One thing is certain, there is no other web site service that is even close. Term4Sale is and remains the best resource for a consumer shopping to find competitively priced term life insurance.
Harry Sit says
Bob, thank you for the work on term4sale. It’s a valuable resource for consumers. No doubt about that. The fact remains that I was able to find a local agent when I shopped on term4sale 10-15 years ago. If I remember correctly, all three listings were local. This time none of the three listings were local. Can you show me a few zip codes in major metro areas where all three listings are local agents? What percent of zip codes have no local agents among three listings term4sale returns?
KD says
Bob, thank you for sharing this information. I found it very helpful.
Robert Barney says
First, in the U.S. Compulife has about 2,000 subscribers. Given that there are 330 million people in the U.S., that’s about one agent per 165,000 people.
Second, here is a link to the tool that we developed to help Compulife’s customers (Compulife owns Term4Sale, Inc.) strategically select zip codes:
http://www.term4sale.com/zipcode
I picked Indiana as an example, using the zip code :
46201 (random from google)
I then said I wanted 1000 results. You can try this yourself.
After the list displayed, I then reordered the list by clicking twice on the 4th column, “Zip Code Income”. That brought the “biggest income” zip code to the top.
NOTE: Zip Code income is the number of households times the average income per household.
The first zip code on the list is “Carmel” with 16,340 households, $94,045 average income.
I opened another browser window and went to:
http://www.term4sale.com
And entered in the zip code 46032 and did a comparison. I then clicked the “More Info” button next to one of the products, to display the list of agents.
The list was:
46032 Sandy Dougherty (317) 731-6509 Carmel
46032 A+ Term/ Aaron Redman (866) 365-6558 Carmel
46032 Gregg Bernhold, CLU, ChFC (317) 844-9482 Carmel
So, two are local, one is a toll free.
The next zip code was 46307, which is Crown Point.
I checked that and found:
46307 Reliant Direct Insurance Services/ John Paraiso (Ext 102) (800) 785-3112 Crown Point
46307 API-Health & Life Plans/ Michael DiGiovanni (800) 417-3969 Crown Point
46307 MrTerm.com/ Roger Craig, LUTCF (800) 880-5954 Crown Point
Which mean that Compulife has NO subscribers in Crown Point.
I checked our customer list, and searched for zip code 46307. We have one subscriber in 46290, and the next is in 46311.
What we can conclude from that is that the agents in or near Crown Point are sleeping at the wheel.
Now I don’t think the $180 to buy Compulife is that big a deal, but it only makes sense to an agent who is really concerned about finding his or her clients a great deal on their life insurance. Finding an agent who sells with a competitive emphasis is HARD, They all talk a good line, but when it comes down to how they actually do business, they patronize the companies whose contracts they like, and push those products, regardless of how competitive they are.
Would I like to have more agents involved, you bet. It is estimated there are about 300,000 agents in the U.S. Once again, only 2,000 subscribe to Compulife, and we have been doing this in the U.S. since 1987. We have never had more than 2,000 subscribers.
If more consumers would patronize agents who do use a service like Compulife (ie. buy from agents listed at http://www.term4sale.com), then more agents would pay attention. But often the consumer shops at http://www.term4sale.com, tells their existing agent what they know or what they want, and that agent sells it to them. That’s backward. Why didn’t the agent recommend that first? Why would someone buy from an agent they have to educate?
Bob Barney says
Just a follow-up for those watching this discussion.
Once again – full disclosure. I am the president and owner of Compulife which owns http://www.term4sale.com.
Compulife has just posted the latest lists of agents for 2016. That 2016 list has more local agents listed in local zip codes than for 2015.
In October and November 2015 we heavily promoted the opportunity for agents, within a 20 mile radius of a zip code, to use one of their 3 free zip code listings to “bump” an agent who paid for a listing in that zip code. Subscribers to our service were given the first week of November to do the bumping and hundreds took advantage of the offer moving their FREE listings to high volume zip codes in their area.
It was a lot of work making those changes but the feedback on this discussion board convinced me that Compulife’s original goal of giving consumers access to local, independent agents was as important as giving consumers the ability to instantly shop and compare the most competitively priced term life insurance products in the market.
For whatever reason San Diego and Chicago have very high volumes of agents/brokers using Compulife. In many of the zip codes in those areas there are now listings with nothing but local agents. I am well aware of that because I had local agents who left their bumping opportunity too late, and were unable to get into some of those zip codes as they were already full of local agents.
If an agent in your local area is not listed because they are not subscribing to Compulife, why not? The cost of a subscription to Compulife is only $180 per year and the agent gets more than just the listings. The agent has access to our agent quoting software with many more sophisticated quoting features and access to complex permanent products; things that we do not provide on the http://www.term4sale.com website.
Perhaps the agent is not listed because they are not as independent as they would like you to believe. I suggest using http://www.term4sale.com to find another agent, local or not, to check up on your current agent to ensure that you are getting a competitive deal on your life insurance. It costs nothing to check.
Chuck Nelson says
You can get what Compulife provides from many sources some even free. Mr. Barney says agents talk a good game but sell higher priced products to make more commission. I say Mr. Barney is the one that talks a good game. His site is no better than any other quote comparison site, and in many cases not as good. Mr. Barney wants the consumer to think he is looking out for them but that is not the case. Bob Barney is a bully that looks out for Bob Barney. Buyer Beware!
Bob Barney says
The comment, “Bob Barney is a bully that looks out for Bob Barney” is a personal attack that should underline that Mr. Nelson has an agenda for his posting.
I freely admit that I have said that the majority of life “agents talk a good game but sell higher priced products to make more commission.” As you can expect there are many agents who take that criticism quite personally; I have had some react in anger. That may be why Mr. Nelson wants to attack me personally and to attack my term4sale.com website.
Mr. Nelson says: “You can get what Compulife provides from many sources some even free.” The term4sale.com site, which this thread has been discussing, is FREE. It is simply wrong for Mr. Nelson to imply that it isn’t.
Mr. Nelson says: “His site is no better than any other quote comparison site, and in many cases not as good.” OK Mr. Nelson, please give us some links to the sites that are better. Please explain WHY those sites are better.
Let me explain why term4sale.com is better. Compulife quotes more companies and more products than any other site. It is conceivable that one of our customer’s sites could have as many companies and products, simply because we sell our quoting service to hundreds of agents who feature it on their websites but most agents do NOT quote companies that they do not sell. The vast majority of our customers will reduce the inventory of companies in their quoting system to those that they do sell. Further, some states do not permit agents to quote products for companies that they are not appointed with. At term4sale.com we quote every company in our inventory regardless of how the company sells their products. Because my company does not sell life insurance we are not bound by the circumstances that limit licensed agents.
For those reasons no other site quotes more companies and products but Mr. Nelson may believe that there is something that is more important. If there is I would like to hear all about it. I think most consumers would like to hear about it.
Did I mention that term4sale.com is FREE.
While we encourage consumers to buy life insurance from agents listed at term4sale.com, there is no obligation for consumers to do so. Finding an independent agent who sells with a competitive mindset is a rare thing, and getting lists of such agents is an important service offered by term4sale.com. Having such an agent is asset to the consumer.
I look forward to seeing Mr. Nelson’s list of better sites and reading why they are better.
Leon Nelkin says
I have been a consistent agent subscriber to Mr. Barney’s Compu life and Term4Sale almost since he began this fantastic service for agents and consumers! When I started in this business 40 years ago, I literally had a desk drawer filled with rate sheets for term life insurance from dozens of insurance companies. What used to take me hours to find the best rates for my customers now takes me literally seconds! AND…I am able to offer my customers more choices from the top carriers in the industry. As a veteran agent who truly cares about offering the best coverage for THE lowest cost for the people with whom I am blessed to deal with, I am so grateful to have Mr. Barneys service available. I sincerely welcome serious individuals who are seeking the very best term life insurance to protect their families or their business and I would be happy to hear from anyone…anywhere! If Mr. Barney does not delete this reply, feel free to call me to give you the most accurate quotes and the best service available.