Comments on: Cancelling John Hancock Term Life Insurance

By: Jim Robinson

Jim Robinson — Fri, 30 Dec 2005 06:46:58 +0000

Something I’ve been using are “virtual” credit card numbers. These are generated by some online card services to improve the security of online transaction.

You generate a card number which is attached to your real card number. You set a maximum dollar amount and an expiration date. Once a charge is made to this virtual number, it cannot be charged by another party. This lets me give a credit card number to an agency and control whether or not they ever charge to it again (as I can control whether or not the virtual card is active, or whether or not the limit is high enough to allow for further charges).

It’s a pretty good concept, if a bit more work to fill out an order, since you have to go to the account homepage and generate the virtual card.

By: FMF

FMF — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 19:26:33 +0000

Nickel — I wasn’t saying it was a bad idea — the CONCEPT is good — just some risks you need to watch out for (as you’ve seen).

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 18:37:05 +0000

Great idea! I’ve seen plenty of services that email you reminders about b-days and anniversaries. Why not use them for infrequent bill payments?

By: nickel

nickel — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:09:13 +0000

The main reason I had this on auto-pilot was that if I somehow missed the payment deadline and then died, it could have been disastrous for my family. It’s a lot easier to keep track of regular (monthly) payments than it is to keep track of annual payments.

As it turns out, Lincoln Financial doesn’t offer credit card payments as an option (to keep costs down) so this most likely won’t ever happen again. I just need to make sure to put a big bullseye on my calendar every year such that I never miss the payment. Perhaps this would be a good thing to set up e-mail alerts for.

By: FMF

FMF — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 13:05:19 +0000

That’s a great point — and really the key point of this whole discussion — you need to be on top of your finances.

By: jim

jim — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:17:06 +0000

You should always be on top of everything, even if it’s autopaid. I guess not going on an autopayment plan simply forces you not to be lazy about it.

By: FMF

FMF — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 19:38:22 +0000

At some point, someone will make it a simple, easy, secure process. It just isn’t that way now.

Hey, is that a new business idea?

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:06:07 +0000

Auto bill pay is one case where reading the fine print is annoying. In many cases, they state that it can take 8 to 12 weeks to cancel auto bill pay features. Seems kind of ridiculous given that it takes only a couple days to start it.

I’m with FMF, I skip auto bill pay when I can.

By: Blaine Moore

Blaine Moore — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 15:45:26 +0000

I only have a few things that will automatically pay:
+ my current gym membership, because it saves me $5/mo
+ my new gym membership, because that’s the only way they do it
+ my power bill, same thing w/savings
+ my student loan, lower interest rate

Everything else I want to hand somebody a specific payment.

By: FMF

FMF — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 13:10:34 +0000

Who would have known?

Anyway, this is why many of my bills aren’t paid automatically. I like to keep track of the costs and make sure they’re not springing anything on me. It’s harder to do if it’s automatically charged to a card.

I had a situation like this a few years ago (changing insurers) and since I always paid by check, when I got the notice, I ignored it like you did. But since there was no way for them to get their money, they cancelled it VERY quickly.