
^C^IParameter Screen

The Parameter Screen is the first of the three major "action
screens" of Insurance Shopper.  Here, you set up the basic
information needed for your desired insurance policy.  Use the
mouse, arrows or ENTER to move between the different fields, and
type in new values as appropriate.

There are six fields which Insurance Shopper needs you to fill in
before you can get on with the program:

   Your birth year:  Used to show your age year by year.

   Starting year :   For our purposes, the year you set up your
                     hypothetical insurance policy.

   Age policy ends : At what age do you no longer wish to
                     continue a life insurance policy?
                     This determines what year your analysis
                     schedule will be calculated out to.

   Death benefit:    The amount your proposed policy will pay
                     your beneficiaries when you die.
                     If you are not sure how much insurance to
                     purchase, you can press F8 for a worksheet
                     to estimate your coverage needs.  This
                     worksheet is described in detail later
                     in this help file.  (If you press F1 while
                     in the coverage worksheet, this jumps you
                     right to the appropriate part of the
                     help file.)

   Whole Life prem.: The annual premium you have been quoted for
                     a Whole Life policy.  This type of policy
                     has a fixed annual premium.  You will have
                     to ask an insurance agent for this
                     information, as it varies depending on your
                     personal demographics, the actuarial tables
                     in effect at present, and the rate structure
                     of each insurance company.

   Rate of Return :  The interest rate you would expect to earn
                     (on average) on a safe investment, such as
                     a bank CD.  This is used in calculating
                     the income and capital growth you can expect
                     from your non-insurance investments, for
                     comparison with insurance plans that include
                     a cash value, and it is also used in the
                     coverage worksheet to estimate the income
                     your heirs will derive from your assets.

When you're done entering the parameters for your policy, just
press F10 to go to the schedule screen described below.

Other applicable keys from the Parameter Screen are F1 to bring
up this help screen, F2 to toggle between sound and silent mode,
F3 to save the data you have entered into a file for later
retrieval, F4 to load a previously-saved insurance data file,
F8 to bring up the coverage worksheet, F9 to show the "About"
text file you saw on first running this program, and ESC to
exit.

^P

^C^IAnalysis Screen

The main action of Insurance Shopper is in this screen.

You will see the first screenful of the insurance analysis.
For each year in the life of the policy, you see your age, the
premium of a Term Life policy, the premium of a Whole Life
policy, the cash value of a Whole Life policy, the difference in
premium between Term and Whole policies for this year, and the
total you would have if you invested this difference at the rate
of return on the parameter screen, and let this savings
accumulate at compound interest from the first year of the policy
up to the current year.

To get valid figures in this schedule, you must input the Term
Life premiums and Whole Life cash values year by year.  These
cannot be automatically calculated, as they differ from person to
person and from insurance company to insurance company.  You will
need to contact an insurance agent and get quotes for this data.

Once you have the information, go through the schedule and enter
the premiums and cash values year by year.  You can also change
the data for the Whole Life premiums, though this will normally
stay the same from year to year.  Some insurance plans, however,
have premiums that stop at a certain number of years, so you can
enter them by placing zero in all subsequent years.

You can scroll and page through the schedule with the up and down
arrows and the PgUp and PgDn keys, or click the mouse to move
around.  You may also use TAB and SHIFT-TAB to move between the
columns you can edit.  Home brings you straight to the top of the
schedule, and End takes you to the bottom of it.  F2 toggles
between sound and silence.  F3 lets you save this insurance data
for later reference, and F4 lets you retrieve a previously-saved
data set.  F5 prints out the whole schedule (be sure to get your
printer ready, and place it at the top of a page, since the
printout is formatted with page breaks).

F10 displays a brief summary screen giving information on your
insurance status as it would be if you died or canceled the
policy as of the current year.  You can move up and down the
schedule with the arrow keys and press F10 at different points to
see how your situation will change from year to year as a result
of your insurance decisions.  In particular, look how the cash
value of a Whole Life policy compares with the expected savings
should you instead buy a Term Life policy (which generally has
lower premiums in your younger years) and invest the difference.

If you want to add a fixed amount to a number, you can type
"+100" to add $100 to its prior value.  This will work in general
for any numeric input throughout this program; if you type a
number preceded by "+" or "-", the amount you type will be added
or subtracted from the prior value of the field.

Press F6 to restore a changed field to its former value.

^P
To repeat a field press F7.  This will bring up a box in which
you can input the number of times to repeat the field at the
point of the cursor.  You should first type in the amount you
want to repeat, then press F7 while the cursor is on the field
you just changed.  The current value will be replicated downward
in its column.

To exit the Analysis Schedule and return to the Parameter Screen,
press ESC.  You can return to the Analysis Schedule by pressing
F10.

The Save and Load features bring up screens showing you a list of
insurance data files you have already saved.  All files are saved
using a file extension of ".INS", but this isn't shown on the
screen.  All data from the Parameter Screen, Analysis Schedule,
and Coverage Worksheet are saved.

^P

^C^ICoverage Worksheet

This is an added feature of Insurance Shopper, designed to help
you figure out whether you need any additional life insurance,
and if so, how much.

You are presented with a series of seven screens, starting with
an introduction, continuing through data-entry screens which ask
for your assets and liabilities in a number of categories, and
finally ending with a summary screen that tells you how much
insurance coverage you should have based on these figures.

One item in your available cash is the death benefit value of all
existing life insurance policies.  Include them if you have
insurance already that you plan on keeping, and only wish to
figure out what additional coverage (if any) you need.  Exclude
them if you'd like to figure out, from scratch, whether you
require insurance coverage.

If you exit the Coverage Worksheet with F10, the resulting
insurance amount will be automatically entered into the Death
Benefit line of the parameter screen.  If you exit with ESC, this
number will not be entered.  In any case, you can still manually
edit the Death Benefit figure.

Your assets and liabilities are divided into short-term and
long-term categories.  You should always try to have enough
cash and liquid assets to pay your short-term obligations, and
enough long-term investments to pay your long-term obligations.
If your assets fall short of your liabilities, insurance coverage
equal to the difference is desirable to keep your heirs from
being left holding the bag.

In addition, you must consider what your dependents' annual
living expenses will be, and what income they will have to cover
these expenses.  If your spouse has wage income, this is entered
on the worksheet, but it may not be enough to cover expenses.
Any additional expense must be covered by the income yielded by
assets (using the rate of return entered in the parameter
screen).  If insufficient assets exist (after deducting short and
long term obligations) to yield this income, you should have
insurance coverage sufficient to provide such a capital base, in
addition to the insurance coverage you have to pay immediate
expenses and obligations upon your death.

Be sure not to enter any asset or liability more than once.  If
you are not sure in what category to place something, decide on
one that applies best, and put it there and not anywhere else.

The final amount of insurance calculated at the bottom of the
last screen takes all of these factors into account.

If the final amount is zero, this means that you do not need any
more insurance coverage; your existing coverage and assets are
sufficient to cover all expected expenses upon your death.



^C^ICredits

^C^V
^CWritten by Daniel Tobias
^CConcept by Al Vekovius

^CCopyright 1992 by Softdisk, Inc.
^CAll rights reserved.
