CNIDR Blog

On-line Life Insurance Quotes can Coexist with Total Customer Privacy

Privacy…

Even the notion of it brings up a wistful longing, a “wouldn’t it be nice if…” ache. The concept of controlling your private information harkens back to simpler times.

Privacy is a casualty of modern life - treated as yet another price of progress. Each of us finds frequent, fresh reasons to mourn its loss - as more of our private space is chipped away. On some level we feel violated, while being powerless to slow it down.

One needn’t survive identity theft to be weary of routine assaults upon our individual sense of identity. It’s who we are - after all. Computer technologies driving our world relentlessly chop us into bits and byes of data, that can be stored and analyzed. Then it’s passed along to persons or organizations unknown - to use for “who knows what.”

People Jealously Guard their Bit of Remaining Privacy

Fill in this form… supply that personal fact… There’s no way to protect private information from insatiable, ever- expanding databases. Like the Star Trek slogan of the Borg, “Resistance is Futile.” All the while, down deep there’s a gnawing suspicion that whatever we reveal will be used against us.

Nowhere is that insecurity clearer than on the Internet, with infinite information passing across millions of websites. How willing are people to tell more than they must about themselves? Not very. Websites that demand more than minimal self-disclosure find a high percentage leave rather than comply.

Reliance on the Internet to Find Information Keeps Growing

Studies report the Web is trusted to provide information needed to make decisions and purchases - second only to spouses. A Harris Interactive consumer survey found that 73% of adults are now online - 156 million users.That’s up from 69% eight months before. Such massive changes in consumer behavior are altering every type of business.It’s a new ball game online.

Life insurance was once sold primarily by career life agents who represented a single insurance company. And a person’s agent knew them personally. Now policies are also sold by direct mail, telephone, and over the Internet - often by people who don’t know you at all.

Although there are numerous websites offering life insurance rate information, they ask visitors to disclosure their personal contact information first. And some are just collecting information to sell to agents. One assumes that requirement serves the sales process, rather than serving the wary customer (who just wants the information, thank you).

Anonymity is a Luxury

Imagine acquiring information you desire without having to surrender your privacy! There’s an extensive data base where life insurance rates for major companies are collected. And you can immediately find the best rates in the database, based on the factors you care about and fit you personally.

Here’s the best part. You can acquire that information without having to give up any facts about yourself. It’s a reality - we don’t ask for any personal information in order for you to get the data you want. You see the phrase, “We respect your privacy” all over the Web. But this could be the first time you’ve seen it in practice.

If you visit and enter several factors that you want to know… Bingo, up pop the best rates in the database. Your personal information was never requested. No salesman will call. Nobody is going to make you sorry you filled out a request. Aaaah…

Bet you thought it couldn’t happen. But we demonstrate that online life insurance quotes can co-exist with total customer privacy.

Here’s what one client said, which is representative of the positive feedback people give us about this service: “After attempting to work with several other online insurance services. With them, I was able to look at many different insurance options in the privacy of my own home. Then, when I was good and ready, I made the decision, and contacted them. I had all the rates before I got in touch with them. Being able to do this anonymously made this a very comfortable, non-pressured process.”

You’re Completely in Control

Once you review your list of competitive insurance choices, anonymously, the next move is entirely up to you. Search again with different criteria… File the information away for future reference… Call your brother-in-law who’s been after you to buy the policy he’s selling… Or click on the link for your choice of policy and take the next step (where at some point, you’ll need to identify yourself)… and only then contact us for more information… It’s 100% up to you.

About The Author

Richard Reich, VP Intramark Insurance Your online source for life insurance quotes. Where you can search for the best rates from major life insurance cos. online - on your own.

This article is written by a 27 year old female (borderline Generation X / Y) called Rachel. Rachel spent six years at university, has no outstanding debts with the exception of government student loans. Rachel also has no pension plan, no life insurance, savings or property investment. Despite reports of average starting salaries for graduates beginning at ?18,000, some even at ?25,000, Rachel started on ?14,000 three years ago, despite gaining a First Class Honours and offering extensive work experience.

This isn’t therapy through Microsoft Word, but it’s not uncommon to read reports of “apathetic youth” in the media. For driven young graduates who didn’t quite land where they expected - it is a little frustrating to be branded “ignorant”, when it is already difficult working off university debts and fighting your way onto the career ladder in a very competitive market.

What is the point of having independence in old age, if you cannot experience it in youth? That is not to say young people should be encouraged or supported in their debateable extravagance, only that we remain unconvinced by old age. We may have seen our parents lose money in shares or private pension funds, or get divorced and lose money through property. We may be worried about global warming and in an age of suicide bombers, we may not even be confident about how much control we have on our lives anyway. With so much choice on what we can do, but so few people empowering us with confidence, we may well rebel for years to come - chopping and changing until we find something that fits or until we get tired.

It’s too easy to brand young people as apathetic just because they haven’t got pensions or life insurance. Smug thirty-somethings who received full grants, graduated in a less competitive market and bought property when the house market was low are quite happy to “tut tut” at their twenty-something shadows in their lack of financially savvy experience, but today’s twenty somethings are being squeezed from all angles:

Student loans replace university grants
Commercialisation of university life, with banks and credit card companies actively courting student customers
High property prices
Very competitive job market

What we need are comprehensive financial research sites that provide information which directly relates to our circumstances. Websites such as moneynet with their product price comparisons and finance guides (especially the student finance guide) -do go most of the way, but we want something that also takes into account our aspirations, situations and will go the distance. We’re not adverse to pensions, life insurance and mortgages, but if we’re going to splash out lots of dough, it has to be a reasonably reliable investment and we remain unconvinced from we’ve seen so far in provocative, panic-stirring media.

It’s true that products such as life insurance would at least protect our families from our debts and that’s important, but with regard to pension, who’s to say that in our old age, we may not revert back to student lifestyles - living in communities and on budgets.

Resources:

Google and the search command “define: generation X” or define: generation y” for age reference (The source of inspiration for this article!)

About The Author

As well as the information in the article, Rachel writes for the personal finance blog Cashzilla.  Please feel welcome to comment on any of the article, Cashzilla may bite, but Rachel doesn’t!

  The determination of whether you should purchase travel insurance is a determination of whether you want to assume nothing bad can happen during your travels, or whether should something bad happen you can adequately resolve these unforeseen events.

None of us think something bad will happen. We assume incorrectly that fire, flood, earthquake and terrorism will happen to others. We assume we won’t have a heart attack or stroke, we won’t be felled by illness. We assume wrong.

The question, “should you purchase travel insurance” is perhaps answered by asking yourself why you purchased homeowners insurance, or medical insurance or life insurance. You purchased them so that your consistent small payments would assure you of having someone else provide help in case of a catastrophic event for which you are unprepared. Purchasing travel insurance, just like purchasing any other insurance, is not just about receiving the funds to recover. It’s also about having the professional assistance of those who know what has to happen for you and your family to recover, and who do make that happen. It’s about cooler heads prevailing.

Should you purchase travel insurance? Well, let’s look at a few things that could, and do happen, to overseas and even domestic travelers. Then, you decide if you should purchase travel insurance.

You’re from Minnesota. You’ve never been to the ocean. You book a hotel room in Florida for a week but you are then ordered to evacuate due to an expected hurricane. But you have non-refundable airline tickets, and your hotel and rental car are already paid for. How do you replace the airline tickets and get reimbursed for your stay? If you had known this was going to happen, what would your answer have been to the question, “Should you purchase travel insurance?”

You’re on an island in the Caribbean, ready for your cruise back home. You find out that the cruise ship company has gone bankrupt and there will be no return cruise. What do you do? How do you get your money back? Most importantly, how do you get back home? If you had known this was going to happen, what would your answer have been to the question, “Should you purchase travel insurance?”

You’re ready to take your family on a much-needed vacation to Hawaii. Your daughter is felled by an attack of appendicitis and must have immediate surgery. But your airline tickets are non-refundable. How do you get your money back? If you had known this was going to happen, what would your answer have been to the question, “Should you purchase travel insurance?”

About The Author

Steve Cogger is an avid traveler offering a wealth of travel information.