The easiest way to discuss the qualities that one should look for in a term life insurance site is to examine a hypothetical case.

John Doe is a 45 year old male, nonsmoker, who needs $500,000 of coverage 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 four websites which advertise their accurate quoting and company selection. John applies to the six companies that showed the lowest premiums.

Here is how the actual premiums offered by the six companies compare to the quotes returned by the four highly acclaimed sites he visited -- InsuranceGuide.com, QuickenInsurance (Insure Market.com), InsWeb.com, and Reliaquote.com.

	Actual Premium	InsuranceGuide	Quicken	InsWeb	Reliaquote
Transamerica	460	460	885	N/A	885*
Empire General	535	535	N/A	N/A	900*
First Penn Pacific	560	560	N/A	N/A	750*
Ohio National	715	N/A	715	715	N/A
North American	730	N/A	N/A	730	730*
CNA	869	N/A	695	695	695*
Blue = misquote (overstated) Red = misquote (understated -- the worst kind of misquote, creating mistrust in customers) N/A = This company is not available through this term site * The lowest quotable risk class (standard) was selected for Reliaquote. John actually exceeds the cholesterol level limit specified by Reliaquote for standard (285) by 5 points.
RATES AS OF NOVEMBER 7, 2000

Only InsuranceGuide.com offers John his top three choices while returning accurate quotes for all three. Reliaquote has the same top three, but misquotes each of them, because its guidelines try to force a "one size fits all" formula for each company.

While InsWeb and QuickenInsurance both do a commendable job of accurately quoting, in John's case they are not especially accurate, because they don't take his good cholesterol ratio into account.

InsWeb, QuickenInsurance, and Reliaquote would all erroneously direct John to buy CNA. Not only do they misquote (by understating) CNA's premium, but they fail to present Transamerica as the actual lowest premium. InsWeb doesn't offer Transamerica, and the other two misquote Transamerica by overstating its premium.

Of course, this is only one case, though it illustrates the importance of both accurate quoting and company selection. To be fair, a far more detailed and general analysis can be found by Clicking Here.