We recently bought new term life insurance policies from Lincoln Financial. Other than upping our coverage, one of the biggest differences on our end is that Lincoln Financial doesn’t allow for automatic credit card payments — rather, we need to send in a check each year. While this is somewhat of an inconvenience, it might actually be a good thing in view of our difficulties with cancelling our John Hancock term life insurance policies. The problem that this presents, however, is that infrequent payments can be difficult to keep track of, and letting our life insurance coverage lapse could be disastrous for the family. So what’s a guy to do?
Aside from writing it on my calendar and hoping that I notice it again before the bill comes due, it struck me that one of the many e-mail reminder services out there might be just what the doctor ordered. Go ahead and run a quick Google search for ‘email reminders‘ and you’ll see that there are a ton of free services out there. Simply pick one, create an account, and set up your reminder. Shortly before that bill comes due, you should receive an e-mail reminding you to pay it. As my three year old says, “easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”
The only problem with ‘set it and forget it’ solutions like this is that you, well, tend to forget it. Thus, it’s important that the service you choose is a good one, and won’t be out of business by the time you need your reminder. This where where you guys come in… I’ve never used one of these services before, so I’m not sure who the major players are. Anyone have any experience in this area? Any suggestions?
Oh, and here’s another idea… Get your reminders via RSS.
I use Google Calendar for this. You can indicate how many days in advance you would like an e-mail reminder. Can also get them via text message to your cell phone.
I use yahoo calendar to set up reminders. It can send an email, instant message to your yahoo messenger and also send a text message to your cell phone.
As I use yahoo mail almost everyday, there is very less chance that I miss my appointments. Also, we can lookup the calendar entries directly from the yahoo messenger.
I use my Palm as a reminder — maybe you should too.
Oh, you’re a paper guy now. 😉
I highly suggest not having to deal with reminders from three places. Have your own system, and make it a system that you can rely on. That’s one of the concepts of Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’ll save you time, energy, and stress.
Just curious, do they not send a statement or a bill or anything? You could also schedule payments through your banking system, depending on it’s level of sophistication it may even have email reminders built-in. (we’re money bloggers, I’d guess it should be pretty good:))
Add redundency into your reminders, have one sent from three places.