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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (9076)	3/27/1998 10:17:00 AM
From: PAL	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13594

The reason AOL stock is up today is attributed to E-mail snag for 25% ot its members yesterday. About a quarter of its member were without electronic mail service for 15 to 20 minutes at midday because of a technical problem. Could you imagine what price AOL stock would be if the outage was for the entire day and affecting all AOL? Go AOL ...

To: Sam who wrote (9076)	3/27/1998 2:21:00 PM
From: Kerry Phineas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13594

Sam, doh! Insurance sales via this method are a mediocre idea, but there are definitely some liabilities/problems/etc. (I'm a health actuary, so I know a bit about this stuff; also, I worked on consumer coverages a lot.) 1. Health insurance these days is increasingly becoming a regional affair. Unless they're selling either Medicare Supplement policies or non-managed care business they will face problems with hospital deals unless they can buy into some networks. Regardless, they'd have to file with the Departments of Insurance for every state to sell in those states. This is very complicated for a company of their size. 2. They'll get some savings re distribution assuming they can attract a decent number of customers. Selling costs are usually about 10-15% long term for nongroup types of coverages. 3. They don't have a good name or reliable finances, which will probably really hurt sales. Definitely a liability for AOL's receiving future payments. 4. This method of selling could reduce paper costs. 5. You'll have significant problems with anti-selection selling insurance in this way; the last thing they need is more financial risk. 6. etc. imo a mediocre idea, and unlikely that AOL would get too much more than the eight million. (note that I really don't like this company. No volume for the last 30 minutes either, really weird.)