As the population ages, there are many people who have the hang of e-mail but who are maybe challenged by drop down menus and questions on online forms that are worded differently than they might speak. By laying out their situation in an e-mail, those people can put the information in the hands of people who are expected to know more than them about insurance. Plus, e-mail can be printed out and read as quickly or as slowly as the recipient needs in order to understand its content. Still--and this isn't just for the insurance industry--I am amazed at the number of companies that don't have customer service-oriented people dealing with their website/e-mail queries. There have been lots of times where I've e-mailed a company via their "contact us" link and failed to get a reply. On the rare occasions I did receive a reply, the information looked like it was written by someone unknowledgeable with that company's products or who just seemed to copy information directly from the website that I already found inadequate. Those companies should take a page from Xomba and the quick turnaround on queries.