Patent Issued for Behavior-Based Business Recommendations (USPTO 9886676)

Journal of Engineering

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Journal of Engineering -- From Alexandria, Virginia, VerticalNews journalists report that a patent by the inventors Bos, Tracy (Seattle, WA); Hjort, Michael (Cherry Hill, NJ), filed on March 13, 2013, was published online on February 6, 2018.

The patent's assignee for patent number 9886676 is Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (Boston, MA).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "Many insurance carriers rely on insurance agents or agencies to promote and sell their insurance policies. It is not uncommon for a single insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) to promote and sell insurance policies from a number of insurance carriers. The approaches used for promoting insurance policies may vary greatly from insurance representative to insurance representative. In some cases, a single insurance representative may even vary the approach to promoting insurance policies from insurance carrier to insurance carrier. In many instances, the approaches selected by an insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) may be related to his/her preferred style of doing business. As a result, an insurance representative having a particular business style may only be interested in utilizing certain types of approaches.

"It is often difficult for an insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) to determine which approaches result in the greatest success for promoting and selling the policies of any given insurance carrier. The insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) may further be unaware of the approaches taken by other insurance agents and/or insurance agency representatives (e.g., insurance agency employees) and the relative success of those agents/representatives or approaches. It may also be difficult for an insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) to identify new or different approaches that may be in line with his/her preferred style of doing business.

"Because an insurance carrier relies to an extent on insurance agents and/or insurance agency representatives (e.g., insurance agency employees) for promoting its products and services, an insurance carrier has an interest in increasing the success of the insurance agents and/or insurance agency representatives (e.g., insurance agency employees). Thus, there is a need in the art for methods, apparatus, systems, and computer program products for recommending tools and/or business practices to an insurance agent and/or insurance agency representative (e.g., insurance agency employee) for increasing success based at least in part on the agent's and/or representative's behavioral style."

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, VerticalNews correspondents also obtained the inventors' summary information for this patent: "Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide methods, apparatus, systems, and computer program products for determining successful practices of insurance representatives.

"According to one aspect, an apparatus comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code is provided. In one embodiment, the at least one memory and the computer program code may be configured to, with the processor, (1) classify one or more insurance representatives into at least one of a plurality of behavioral groups; (2) identify one or more successful insurance representatives from each of the plurality of behavioral groups based at least in part on one or more predetermined criteria; (3) determine one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives; and (4) determine at least one of the one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives correlated with success.

"In accordance with another aspect, a method for determining successful practices of insurance representatives is provided. In one embodiment, the method comprises (1) classifying one or more insurance representatives into at least one of a plurality of behavioral groups; (2) identifying one or more successful insurance representatives from each of the plurality of behavioral groups based at least in part on one or more predetermined criteria; (3) determining one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives; and (4) determining at least one of the one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives correlated with success.

"In accordance with yet another aspect, a computer program product comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium bearing computer program code embodied therein for use with a computer is provided. The computer program code comprises (1) code for classifying one or more insurance representatives into at least one of a plurality of behavioral groups; (2) code for identifying one or more successful insurance representatives from each of the plurality of behavioral groups based at least in part on one or more predetermined criteria; (3) code for determining one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives; and (4) code for determining at least one of the one or more business practices used by the one or more successful insurance representatives correlated with success."

For additional information on this patent, see: Bos, Tracy; Hjort, Michael. Behavior-Based Business Recommendations. U.S. Patent Number 9886676, filed March 13, 2013, and published online on February 6, 2018. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9886676.PN.&OS=PN/9886676RS=PN/9886676

Keywords for this news article include: Business, Computers, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.