Patent Issued for Commercial Insurance Growth Data For Agents (USPTO 10,861,027)

2020 DEC 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 10,861,027, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Barton, Michael (Glenview, IL); Sprinkle, Wesley Forrest (Tower Lakes, IL); Ramsey, III, Jackson B. (Naperville, IL); Marlow, Clint J. (Barrington, IL).

This patent was filed on October 8, 2014 and was published online on December 21, 2020.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Although insurance agents sell insurance policies to customers on behalf of insurance providers, the insurance agents themselves often operate independently from the insurance providers. For instance, insurance agents may operate as independent businesses with respect to selecting office locations and sizes, hiring staff, acquiring and serving customers, setting revenue and growth goals, and other business decisions. Some insurance agents may specialize in particular policy types (e.g., home, automobile, life, health, or business) and/or particular types of customers, while other agents may maintain insurance practices covering multiple policy types and a broad range of customer types.

“When an insurance agent seeks to grow its business, it may do so by adding new customers or by selling additional policies (or larger policies) to its existing customers. When attempting to acquire new customers, many insurance agents may focus on potential customers from the same geographic region as the agent’s current offices, and potential customers having similar insurance needs as their existing customers. By focusing on these types of potential customers, the insurance agent may feel confident that they will be able to provide quality service to all new customers.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to systems, apparatuses, computer-implemented methods, and computer-readable media executable by insurance provider servers and insurance agent computing devices, for receiving and responding to requests for commercial insurance growth data from insurance agents. According to certain aspects, insurance provider servers may be configured to receive commercial insurance information requests from insurance agent devices, determine sets of insurance agent characteristics for the corresponding insurance agents, generate commercial insurance growth data packages based on sets of agent characteristics and other data, and transmit the commercial insurance growth data packages back to the insurance agent devices. The sets of agent characteristics may be provided by an insurance agent user via a software user interface, and/or may be retrieved from an insurance agent database. According to additional aspects, one or more business segments of commercial insurance may be selected by the insurance agent, or may be selected for the insurance agent via an analysis by an insurance provider. The selected business segments may be used to generate the customized commercial insurance growth data for the insurance agent, including specific industry analyses, business action plans, sales leads, and additional relevant commercial insurance growth data.

“Other features and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the additional description provided herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“The invention claimed is:

“1. An insurance provider server, comprising: one or more processors; one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units; and one or more networking components, wherein the insurance provider server is configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and one or more processors to: receive, from an insurance agent computing device associated with an insurance agent and via the one or more network components, an information request for commercial insurance growth data; automatically detect a device type of the insurance agent computing device upon receiving the information request; cause a first user interface to be displayed at the insurance agent computing device, wherein the first user interface is determined based on the detected device type and comprises a set of interface components configured to receive user input corresponding to a set of agent characteristics; receive, from the insurance agent computing device and through a user interaction with one or more interface components of the first user interface, the set of agent characteristics of the insurance agent; determine, based on the detected device type of the insurance agent computing device, a type of commercial insurance growth data package to generate; generate, in response to the information request and in a format of the determined type of commercial insurance growth package, a commercial insurance growth data package related to one or more business segments, wherein the one or more business segments are determined, for the insurance agent, based on the received set of agent characteristics; transmit, to the insurance agent computing device, via the one or more networking components, and in response to the information request, the commercial insurance growth data package; and incorporate the commercial insurance growth data package into one or more interface components of the first user interface, wherein the incorporated commercial growth data package includes a first interface component providing a set of assumptions used to generate the commercial insurance growth data package and a second interface component providing one or more projected metrics associated with the commercial insurance growth data package.

“2. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: retrieve, from an insurance agent database and based on an agent identifier received from the insurance agent computing device with the information request, additional agent characteristics; and generate the commercial insurance growth data package for the insurance agent further based on the additional agent characteristics.

“3. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; retrieve one or more predetermined sales lead success assumptions for the one or more business segments; and calculate, based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the predetermined sales lead success assumptions, a number of sales leads to provide to the insurance agent.

“4. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: cause a second user interface to be displayed at the insurance agent computing device, the second user interface comprising a selectable list of business segments; receive, from the insurance agent computing device and through the second user interface, a selection of one or more additional business segments from the selectable list of business segments; and compile a set of business segment market analyses for each of the one or more business segments and the selected one or more additional business segments.

“5. The insurance provider server of claim 3, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: cause a second user interface to be displayed at the insurance agent computing device, the second user interface comprising a selectable list of business segments; receive, from the insurance agent computing device and through the second user interface, a selection of at least one additional business segment from the selectable list of business segments; determine, based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the predetermined sales lead success assumptions, that one or more additional business segments, of the at least one additional business segment, are unsuitable for the insurance agent; based on determining that the one or more additional business segments are unsuitable, discarding the one or more additional business segments that are unsuitable; and compile a set of business segment market analyses for each of the one or more business segments and the remaining additional business segments.

“6. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; determine an agent type of the insurance agent within an insurance company; and generate the commercial insurance growth data package for the insurance agent further based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the agent type of the insurance agent.

“7. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; retrieve one or more predetermined sales lead costs, based on at least one of a geographic location associated with the insurance agent or the one or more business segments; and generate the commercial insurance growth data package for the insurance agent further based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the predetermined sales lead costs.

“8. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: provide a set of commercial insurance sales leads to the insurance agent; track, over a predetermined period of time, a performance level of the insurance agent with respect to the provided set of commercial insurance sales leads; and determine, based on the performance level of the insurance agent, whether to provide the provided set of commercial insurance sales leads to a second insurance agent.

“9. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; determine one or more commercial insurance policy retention rates for each of the one or more business segments; and generate the commercial insurance growth data package for the insurance agent further based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the determined one or more commercial insurance policy retention rates.

“10. A method, comprising: receiving, by an insurance provider server and from an insurance agent computing device associated with an insurance agent, an information request for commercial insurance growth data; automatically detect a device type of the insurance agent computing device upon receiving the information request; causing, by the insurance provider server, a first user interface to be displayed at the insurance agent computing device, wherein the first user interface is determined based on the detected device type and comprises a set of interface components configured to receive user input corresponding to a set of agent characteristics; receiving, by the insurance provider server, from the insurance agent computing device and through a user interaction with one or more interface components of the first user interface, the set of agent characteristics of the insurance agent; determining, based on the detected device type of the insurance agent computing device, a type of commercial insurance growth data package to generate; generating, by the insurance provider server and in a format of the determined type of commercial insurance growth data package, a commercial insurance growth data package related to one or more business segments, wherein the one or more business segments are determined, for the insurance agent, based on the received set of agent characteristics; transmitting, by the insurance provider server, to the insurance agent computing device, and in response to the information request, the commercial insurance growth data package; and incorporating the commercial insurance growth data package into one or more interface components of the first user interface, wherein the incorporated commercial growth data package includes a set of assumptions used to generate the commercial insurance growth data package and one or more projected metrics associated with the commercial insurance growth data package.

“11. The method of claim 10, further comprising: retrieving, from an insurance agent database and based on an agent identifier received from the insurance agent computing device with the information request, additional agent characteristics; and generating the commercial insurance growth data package further based on the additional agent characteristics.

“12. The method of claim 10, further comprising: causing a second user interface to be displayed at the insurance agent computing device, the second user interface comprising a selectable list of business segments; receiving, from the insurance agent computing device and through the second user interface, a selection of one or more additional business segments from the selectable list of business segments; and compiling a set of market analyses for each of the one or more business segments and the selected one or more additional business segments.

“13. The method of claim 10, further comprising: receiving a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; retrieving one or more predetermined sales lead success assumptions for the one or more business segments; and calculating, based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the predetermined sales lead success assumptions, a number of sales leads to provide to the insurance agent.

“14. The method of claim 10, further comprising: receiving a commercial insurance growth goal from the insurance agent computing device; determining an agent type of the insurance agent within an insurance company; and generating the commercial insurance growth data package for the insurance agent further based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the agent type of the insurance agent.

“15. A commercial insurance growth data system comprising an insurance provider computer server, comprising: one or more first processors; one or more first networking components; and one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units, comprising an insurance agent database; and a first insurance agent computing device, comprising: one or more second processors; one or more second nonvolatile hardware memory units; one or more display devices; and one or more second networking components, wherein the insurance provider computer server is configured to access and employ the one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more first processors to: receive, from the first insurance agent computing device associated with an insurance agent and via the one or more first network components, an information request for commercial insurance growth data; automatically detect a device type of the first insurance agent computing device upon receiving the information request; cause a first user interface to be displayed at the first insurance agent computing device, wherein the first user interface is determined based on the detected device type and comprises a set of interface components configured to receive user input corresponding to a set of agent characteristics; receive, from the first insurance agent computing device and through a user interaction with one or more interface components of the first user interface, the set of agent characteristics of the insurance agent; access the insurance agent database to retrieve additional insurance agent characteristics based on the information request; determine, based on the detected device type of the first insurance agent computing device, a type of commercial insurance growth data package to generate; generate, in a format of the determined type of commercial insurance growth data package, a commercial insurance growth data package related to one or more business segments, wherein the one or more business segments are determined, for the insurance agent, based on the received set of agent characteristics and the retrieved additional agent characteristics; and transmit, to the first insurance agent computing device, via the one or more first networking components, and in response to the information request, the commercial insurance growth data package; incorporate the commercial insurance growth data package into one or more interface elements of the first user interface, wherein the incorporated commercial growth data package includes a set of assumptions used to generate the commercial insurance growth data package and with one or more projected metrics associated with the commercial insurance growth data package, and wherein the first insurance agent computing device is configured to access and employ the one or more second nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more second processors to: detect information identifying the device type of the first insurance agent computing device; transmit, to the insurance provider computer server, the information identifying the device type of the first insurance agent computing device and the information request, wherein the information request comprises an insurance agent identifier; receive the commercial insurance growth data package from the insurance provider computer server; and display the commercial insurance growth data package to an authenticated user via the one or more display devices, wherein the displayed commercial growth data package includes the set of assumptions used to generate the commercial insurance growth data package and the one or more projected metrics associated with the commercial insurance growth data package.

“16. The commercial insurance growth data system of claim 15, wherein the insurance provider computer server is further configured to access and employ the one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more first processors to: cause a second user interface to be displayed at the first insurance agent computing device, the second user interface comprising a selectable list of business segments; receive a selection of one or more additional business segments from the selectable list of business segments; and compile a set of market analyses for each of the one or more business segments and the selected one or more additional business segments.

“17. The commercial insurance growth data system of claim 15, wherein the insurance provider computer server is further configured to access and employ the one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more first processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the first insurance agent computing device; retrieve one or more predetermined sales lead success assumptions for the one or more business segments; and calculate, based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the predetermined sales lead success assumptions, a number of sales leads.

“18. The commercial insurance growth data system of claim 15, wherein the insurance provider computer server is further configured to access and employ the one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more first processors to: receive a commercial insurance growth goal from the first insurance agent computing device; determine an agent type of the insurance agent associated with the first insurance agent computing device; and generate the commercial insurance growth data package further based on the commercial insurance growth goal and the agent type of the insurance agent.

“19. The commercial insurance growth data system of claim 15, wherein the insurance provider computer server is further configured to access and employ the one or more first nonvolatile hardware memory units and one or more first processors to: determine, based on the received set of agent characteristics and the retrieved additional agent characteristics, the one or more business segments for the insurance agent associated with the first insurance agent computing device; and compile a set of business segment market analyses for each of the determined one or more business segments.

“20. The insurance provider server of claim 1, wherein the insurance provider server is further configured to access and employ the one or more nonvolatile hardware memory units and the one or more processors to: generate a simplified commercial insurance growth data package based on determining that the information identifying the device type of the insurance agent computing device indicates that the insurance agent computing device is a mobile device.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Barton, Michael; Sprinkle, Wesley Forrest; Ramsey, III, Jackson B.; Marlow, Clint J. Commercial Insurance Growth Data For Agents. U.S. Patent Number 10,861,027, filed October 8, 2014, and published online on December 21, 2020. 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=10,861,027.PN.&OS=PN/10,861,027RS=PN/10,861,027

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