Many businesses - stockbrokers, health insurance, telephone companies, etc. - want to save money ("and trees") by having you receive notifications online.
I am a but of a Luddite in that I like receiving paper mail. Not for everything - but I know just how fragiler the email system is, and how easy it could be to lose access to all of my email accounts. Less easy now than it used to be, but nevertheless...
Actually, what I really want is both paper and electronic. Paper as a backup. Electronic so that I can easily search.
But note that I said "electronic" and "easily search". Most online notifications are pull - as in, "go to the website and download the bill". Or, maybe "we will send you email when a new item is posted to your account, but then you must go to the website and pull it down yourself". Frankly, I am too lazy and too busy to want to do this.
I want push, and/or I want automation. I want such information aggregated automatically. (Yes, I know about mint.com)
Also: I keep paper records for all of my financial stuff. If ir's online only I have to print out out myself. If they paper mail it to me, I save a step. That's worth it to me, although perhaps not to them. (I have asked my financial providers to use online for most stuff, but to send me full paper mail annual or quarterly reports. But they usually don't have that flexibility.)
Here's an idea:
Instead of the only options being (0) Paper mail only, and (1) Online only.
How about
(1.5) Paper and online. Some sites allow pure pull from the website, but decide not to email you when they send you paper mail notifications.
(1.75) Online - but if you have not acknowledged that you have looked at in a month, or whatever to critical time period is, send a paper version.
I wonder if there could be a "full spectrum aggregator" - one that not only aggregates your financial info, but also aggregates all of these things like health insurance.
The proliferation of private email systems sucks.
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