By Targeted News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 17 -- Allstate Insurance, Northbrook, Ill., has been assigned a patent (8,355,931) developed by Matthew S. Easley, Arlington Heights, Ill., for "mortality progression methods and systems."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Methods and systems for preparing improved mortality tables for use with life insurance and other financial products are described herein. The improved mortality tables described herein account for progression over time of insureds from one underwriting class to another, e.g., based on deteriorating health over time. An insured who is in a "preferred" class at the time of initial underwriting might not still qualify for "preferred" status in 5 years, or even the next year. By creating a system of linear equations that predict the composition of a group n years after underwriting, insurance (and other financial products) providers can calculate more definite costs for pricing financial products based on the estimated or expected transition from one underwriting class to another."

The patent application was filed on June 10, 2009 (12/482,032). The full-text of the patent can be found at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=8,355,931&OS=8,355,931&RS=8,355,931

Written by Satyaban Rath; edited by Hemanta Panigrahi.

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