The charter for InsuranceGuide is to lead the paradigm shift required to empower life insurance consumers. To that end, we are always looking to incorporate the latest technologies and processes that further this cause. As a life insurance consumer, you benefit. We have recently upgraded our software to remain the leader in the two most important categories for consumer empowerment: quoting accuracy and carrier selection. A simple example will make our point (with a far more detailed analysis available to interested readers). John Doe is a 45 year old male, nonsmoker, who needs $500,000 of term life insurance for 10 years. His only health impairment is a high cholesterol level (290), which is offset somewhat by a great cholesterol ratio (4.0). John wants to find what company will give him the lowest rate, guaranteed level for 10 years. To accomplish this, he visits six websites which have been chosen as picks by Forbes, CNN/Money, and in a recent study by the Consumer Federation of America. John applies to the company that showed the lowest premium. (He is told that he can only apply to one company at a time). Here is how the actual premiums offered by the term insurance companies compare to the quotes returned by the sites most often referenced in the media - If you would like more details, feel free to contact us. Quote Site Premium Top 3 Companies Comments Actual Rates 385 Amer. Life of NY 390 Transamerica 430 Empire General InsuranceGuide 390 Transamerica Software guidelines 430 Empire General 475 First Penn-Pacific QuickQuote 590 First Penn-Pacific Software guidelines 675 North American Guidelines inaccurate 700 Western-Southern InsWeb 700 John Hancock Software guidelines 709 North American Missing top carriers 710 Ohio National Reliaquote 665 Ohio National Manual guidelines 675 North American Guidelines inaccurate 700 Western-Southern Term4Sale 330 Americom Manual guidelines 340 Ohio National 370 Clarica Quotesmith 340 Ohio National Manual guidelines 375 Banner 375 West Coast AccuQuote 575 Banner Manual guidelines 590 First Penn-Pacific Guidelines inaccurate 660 West Coast Missing top carriers Blue = misquote (overstated) Red = misquote (understated) RATES AS OF NOVEMBER 14, 2001 Only Insurance Guide offers John a top three term life insurance company, returning two out of three. QuickQuote includes underwriting guidelines in their software, but they are inaccurate, missing the important question on cholesterol ratio. Also, they lack some key competitive carriers. InsWeb does a commendable job of accurately quoting; since our last study, they have upgraded their software to include cholesterol ratio. But they are lacking far too many competitive carriers to be considered a strong consumer site. Our previous study also included InsureMarket, but they have since merged their site with InsWeb. Quotesmith, Term4Sale and AccuQuote would all erroneously direct John to buy carriers whose term insurance rates have been grossly understated. These sites merely return a list of companies and rates without screening for underwriting issues. AccuQuote asks a lot of underwriting questions, but then does not use the answers in providing the online quote. Quotesmith does provide accurate manual guidelines; unfortunately, few consumers will have the expertise or patience to wade through them. Of course, this is only one case, though it illustrates the importance of both accurate quoting and carrier selection when getting life insurance quotes. We recently discovered this site, which covers life insurance underwriting very well: term life insurance quote.