| By Jim Bruene on May 29, 2008 3:02 PM | Comments (5) |
I heard from a new company last week that has created a service to help life insurance and bank-account holders to notify beneficiaries periodically that they are named on the account. According to FindYourPolicy.com (see screenshot below), $1 billion in insurance policies go unclaimed each year due to unknown or lost beneficiaries. Although it sounds simple, tracking down beneficiaries can be a timely and expensive process. Outsourcing some or all of that is an appealing idea.
However, as a consumer-direct service, I don't think FindYourPolicy.com will get a lot of traction. The list price of $29.95 plus $3.95 per month is a lot for twice-yearly postcards (see note 1) to your beneficiaries. But the company is likely more interested in setting a high retail "value" on the service so they can wholesale it to financial institutions for pennies on the dollar.
Using the same concept for safe deposit boxes
While the beneficiary notification is an idea deserving of a second look, I was more intrigued with another of its features, safe deposit documentation and notification service. I just spent 30 minutes last Friday making a trip to the bank to look in my safe deposit to see if my son's social security card was there (note 2). Of course, it wasn't. I could have saved the trip if I'd had good records on its contents. I'm sure I wrote it down somewhere, but it would likely take much longer than 30 minutes to find it.
Ideas to help memory-challenged customers like myself:
- Simplest: It would be great if my bank had a simple email-like software app available near the safe-deposit area where I could list the contents of the box and then email the info to myself AND store a record of that communication within online banking so I could access it years from now when the email is long lost.
- Harder: In addition to manually entering info, have a scanner available so that I can scan copies of the documents in the safe deposit box for a digital record.
- Hardest: Extend the service to the home/office and allow me either to store items virtually, using my home/office scanner, or by uploading/emailing documents into the virtual safe-deposit box. This is the core idea behind vSafe from Wells Fargo.
However, as Tripp Johnson at Gonzobanker so eloquently laid out in this article, there are serious questions regarding overall demand for virtual safe-deposit services, not to mention pesky compliance issues that cannot be ignored.
FindYourPolicy.com homepage (29 May 2008; see note 3)
Note:
1. Why TWICE yearly? Once per year seems like plenty. Or how about one postcard and one email message each year? (Update 1 June: The reason for mailing 2x per year is that the U.S. Postal Service forwards mail only for six months, so with this frequency the company ensures it gets the forwarding address. (See comment #2 from Michael Hartmann of FindYourPolicy.com)
2. My bank is requiring a faxed copy of my 18-year-old son's social security card in order to add him to my account. I'm all for good authentication (who isn't?), but that seems extreme. More on that in a future post.
3. Sometime during the past 10 days, FindYourPolicy.com added the "member of American Bankers Association" seal. It's a reasonable touch, but it only means they've paid at least $1,250 for a service membership to the ABA.
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I believe you are correct. I think the personal finace tools like Wesabe and Mint are destined to become part of bank and CU sites. Jwaala's MoneyTracker already works with banks and CUs to add it's personal finance tool to their web sites. It also allows uploading of digital documents to a safe storage area from home.
May 31 2008
Hello Jim,
Thank you for taking the time and commenting on our website. We would like to add a few comments to your already well written article.
Our main focus/mission is to keep beneficiaries informed on where their loved ones information is stored. If the member wishes to log the contents of their Safe Deposit box and feels comfortable doing that, there is room for that as well.
For security reasons we did not want any type of scanning feature. We feel that there are too many breaches that occur with in the World Wide Web, so less is more. By only documenting the location of a Safe Deposit Box, any type of penetration of our website will only supply the thief with a bank name. If we were to scan documents, which have all your information on it (e.g. Social Security Number and signatures) than it would be very easy to steal your identity. Please keep in mind that we are here specifically to remind the designated beneficiaries of the location of where their loved ones hold their specific items. We do not act as an online storage facility more like a reminder service.
We also will remind members and their designated beneficiaries two times a year with a physical Post Card in the mail, due to one major reason. The post office forwards mail for 6 months when someone moves. If we were to only send our “Post Card” once a year, we might miss that person. Of course it is up to the member to update any information to assist us to keep the designated person informed, however, we try to proactively make it easier until they do.
We will also be starting a monthly Newsletter that will be sent out to the Members and their Designated Beneficiaries. This newsletter will act as a reminder as well as have interesting information on insurance and investments. We are here to benefit the consumer and make sure that their legacy(s) get passed on.
And as you mentioned, we are “Proud Members of the American Bankers Association.” We did have to pay for the service membership. However, to become a member your company must (according to their Eligibility Requirements/Procedures) “provide products and/or services that enable American Bankers Association (ABA) member’s banks to carry out their mission.” We are a service that complies with this requirement.
We truly believe that this is a service that is extremely valuable to consumers due to large amounts of money left from unclaimed Safe Deposit Boxes and unclaimed Life Insurance.
Thank you again for attention to our service. If there are any questions that anyone has, please feel free to visit us on our website or send an e-mail to me directly.
Michael Hartmann
FindYourPolicy.com
Michael@findyourpolicy.com
http://www.findyourpolicy.com
Great idea for this service. I most recently was in a postion where my father passed away unexpectedly and I was unable to locate the name of his life insurance company. Despite an exhaustive search at his home, I couldn't find any paper work or detailed information. I spend a grueling 12 hours on the phone calling life insurance companies looking for his policy. I applaud the developers of this service, until you go through what I did, you have no idea what a complete nightmare it is trying to locate a policy blindly. Thumbs up to a great idea and most useful and worthly service.
Hello Tyler,
Thank you for the comments. We wanted to inform everyone that our prices have changed to reflect the feed back from our customers. We have always wanted our service to be affordable to everyone. We have adjusted our prices to a flat fee of $24.95 a year. This includes all the benefits of FindYourPolicy.com. We encourage all to take a look at our service and see how we can prevent everyone with Life Insurance and Safe Deposit Boxes losing it by simply forgetting to communicate the company names.
Michael Hartmann (CEO)
FindYourPolicy.com
FindYourPolicy.com is now a Free Life Insurance Registry available to anyone in the World that has Life Insurance. We encourage everyone that is concerned that their life insurance company name will be found by their loved ones to sign up and portect their legacy. It is a simple 3 minute to register keeping in mind that we never ask for your social security number, policy numbers or any monetary value what so ever. FindYourPolicy.com is now available Globally so we invite all international clients to view our website http://www.findyourpolicy.com to see the benefits of registering.If there are any questions, please e-mail me directly.
Michael
Michael@findyourpolicy.com