Patent Issued for Medical diagnostic-initiated insurance offering (USPTO 11501382): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2022 DEC 02 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11501382, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Roll, Leif Agerholm (Bloomington, IL, US), Wieduwilt, Andrew Patrick (Bloomington, IL, US).

This patent was filed on September 18, 2020 and was published online on November 15, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Individuals who seek to be covered by health-related insurance and are sensitive to pricing and product features (e.g., coverage types and/or limits, deductibles, etc.) often expend considerable time and effort in finding insurance providers that best meet their needs. Some types of insurance require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on the potential insured party or insuree prior to generating and offering a binding quote, for example, life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, etc. Conventionally, a consumer seeking such insurance (e.g., via in an agent, online, mobile device, a tablet, a computing device, a call center, etc.) submits partial personal information to receive ballpark quotes for premium payments for a face value of an insurance policy. The partial personal information typically may include answers to a set of questions about the potential insured party that are provided by the potential insured party and/or by his or her agent. Examples of such partial personal information include gender; age; state and/or ZIP Code; height and weight; whether or not the potential insured party uses tobacco products or not; whether or not the potential insured party has certain medical conditions such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, depression, diabetes, etc.; whether or not any of the parents and/or siblings of the potential insured party have been diagnosed with medical conditions such as cancer, stroke and/or heart condition, etc.; and a general self-categorization of his or her health, e.g., fair, good, very good, excellent, etc.

“In some scenarios, one or more desired insurance terms such as coverage amount, monthly premium amount, etc. may be submitted. Accordingly, the initiation of the procurement of insurance may be triggered by the submission, by a potential insured party or by an agent of the potential insured party, of partial personal information of the potential insured party to one or more insurance providers.

“After the partial personal information has been submitted to and processed by one or more recipient insurance providers, the consumer may receive one or more estimates, ballpark quotes, and/or non-binding quotes for one or more possible insurance policies. Subsequently, the consumer may select a particular non-binding quote offered by a particular insurance carrier or provider (typically, based upon the premium payment amount), and may be required by the particular insurance carrier provider to undergo a medical diagnostic examination as part of the application process.

“The results of the medical diagnostic examination may then be utilized to determine whether or not the potential insured party actually meets the insurance carrier or provider’s risk profile for the particular insurance policy. If the results of the medical diagnostic examination (and, in some cases, other additional information) indicate that the potential insured party meets the risk profile or otherwise is an eligible insured party for the particular insurance policy, the insurance carrier or provider may generate a binding quote for the particular insurance policy based upon the results, and offer it to the consumer.

“This conventional approach suffers from several drawbacks. For instance, a consumer may be required to submit partial personal information without knowing if he or she is actually medically eligible for the insurance policy being quoted. If he or she is not medically eligible as eventually is determined based upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results, the consumer may be required to adjust his or her desired insurance terms and resubmit his or her personal information in hopes of finding a suitable insurance policy for which he or she is eligible. This cycle may need to be repeated multiple times and as such, the consumer may be required to go through multiple redundant steps in order to eventually find a suitable policy.

“Further, the initially provided non-binding quote may differ from the actual binding quote to a significant extent. In such situations, the consumer may again repeat the cycle in hopes of finding a suitable insurance premium amount. Thus, the consumer may be forced to guess at what particular terms will result in a suitable insurance policy for which he or she is an eligible insured party based upon the results of his or her yet-to-be-performed medical diagnostic examination.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments may, inter alia, automatically provide a consumer or patient with one or more offers for insurance corresponding to one or more health-related insurance policies for which the patient is an eligible insured party based upon the patient’s medical diagnostic examination results, without requiring the patient to submit partial personal information and/or without requiring the patient to cyclically hone in on acceptable insurance terms. In some embodiments, insurance for the patient may automatically be procured and bound upon the initial availability of medical diagnostic examination results. Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and health insurance, to name a few. The initial provision of insurance offers may include one or more binding quotes, and the generation of the one or more binding quotes may be automatically triggered when the results of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on a patient are newly or initially determined and/or available.

“Indeed, the generation of the one or more binding quotes may be automatically triggered based upon the initial availability of the examination results, and the one or more binding quotes may be the first or initial estimates or quotes for insurance based upon the newly available results which the consumer receives. In some embodiments, insurance may be automatically procured for the patient when the newly available examination results are initially made available. Thus, the time and/or effort that consumers must spend to find a suitable insurance policy may be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

“In an aspect, a system for triggering the initiation of offers for insurance based upon medical diagnostic examination results may be provided. The system may be operated by a medical diagnostic provider and/or by an insurance procurer, for example. The system may include one or more data storage devices storing thereon results of a plurality of medical diagnostic examinations that have been performed by one or more medical diagnostic providers on a respective plurality of patients or subjects. Additionally, the system may include a network interface that communicatively couples the system to the system(s) of one or more insurance providers. The system may further include one or more processors and one or more memories that are particularly configured with particular computer-executable instructions.

“The particular computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or processors of the system, may cause the system to determine, for each set of medical examination results that are stored in the data storage devices, whether or not the contents of a health profile of the respective patient or subject renders the respective patient or subject as eligible for one or more offers for one or more types of insurance that require an applicant or potential insured party to undergo a medical diagnostic examination, e.g., life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, and/or another type of health-related insurance. The health profile may be determined, for example, based upon information and/or data included in the results of the respective patient’s medical diagnostic examination, which may have included at least one invasive procedure such a blood draw, and/or which may have been performed during the patient’s annual physical examination. When a patient or subject is determined to be eligible, the particular computer-executable instructions may be executed to provide, via the network interface, the health profile of the patient or subject to one or more insurance provider computing systems for the generation of one or more binding quotes for insurance. Indeed, the patient or subject’s health profile may be the initial and/or the sole or only indication of the patient or subject’s quality of health that is received by the recipient insurance provider computing systems and that is used by the recipient insurance provider computing systems to determine the terms of the one or more binding quotes. At least some of the recipient insurance provider computing systems may return one or more binding quotes for one or more insurance policies for which the patient or subject is eligible as an insured party. As such, the instructions may be executed to further receive, via the network interface, the one or more binding quotes for one or more respective insurance policies for which the respective patient is eligible to be an insured party. The particular computer-executable instructions may be further executed to provide indications of the one or more binding quotes to a user, thereby initiating the one or more offers for one or more types of insurance.

“In one embodiment, the computer-executable instructions may be further executable to cause the system to, when the respective patient is determined to be eligible to receive insurance offers, receive an indication of a selection of one of the binding quotes, and provide an indication of the selected binding quote to the insurance provider system from which the quote was received. In some cases, the computer-executable instructions may be further executable to cause the system to receive an indication that the selected binding quote has been bound by the insurance provider, and cause at least a portion of the cost to perform the medical diagnostic examination to be credited or refunded to the respective patient.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: one or more processors; a network interface configured to communicatively couple the system to a plurality of insurance provider computing systems for respective ones of a plurality of insurance providers; and one or more tangible, non-transitory memories storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to: generate a health profile for a person based upon the results of a medical diagnostic examination completed for the person; identify, based upon the health profile, a plurality of insurance policy offers, from a plurality of insurance providers for insurance that requires a medical diagnostic examination to be performed, that the person is eligible for as a pre-approved potential insured party; trigger generation of underwritten binding quotes for respective ones of the plurality of insurance policy offers from the plurality of insurance providers by providing, using the network interface, the health profile for the person to the plurality of insurance provider computing systems associated with the plurality of insurance policy offers; receive, via the network interface from the plurality of insurance provider computing systems associated with the plurality of insurance policy offers, the binding quotes for respective ones of the plurality of insurance policy offers, each of the plurality of binding quotes generated by a respective one of the plurality of insurance provider computing systems based upon the health profile for the person, the health profile being a sole indication of a quality of health of the person used by the plurality of insurance provider computing systems to generate the binding quotes; and present, at a user interface, the plurality of underwritten binding quotes that are generated based upon the completion of the medical diagnostic examination for the person.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is operated and/or provided by a medical diagnostic provider that completed the medical diagnostic examination for the person.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of insurance policy offers includes offers for at least one of a life insurance policy, a long-term care insurance policy, or a disability insurance policy.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of insurance policy offers includes different types of insurance policies.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to: receive an indication of a selection of one of the binding quotes; and provide, via the network interface, an indication that the one of the binding quotes has been selected to the respective insurance provider computing system.

“6. The system of claim 5, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to: receive an indication that the one of the binding quotes has been bound by the respective insurance provider; and at least one of refund or credit to the person a cost of the medical diagnostic examination completed for the person upon receiving the indication that the one of the binding quotes has been bound.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the binding quotes are determined based upon the health profile of the person and one or more preferred insurance policy terms from a group of terms comprising an amount of a premium payment, a term length, an insurance provider rating, a desired type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, and another insurance policy term, and wherein at least some of the members of the group of terms are defined by at least one of the person, an agent of the person, or the insurance provider.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the medical diagnostic examination completed for the person at least one of includes (i) an invasive procedure, or (ii) is performed as part of an annual physical examination of the person.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the health profile for the person is provided to the plurality of insurance provider computing systems for bid and/or quote.

“10. A computer-implemented method for initiating offers for insurance based upon a medical diagnostic examination performed by a medical diagnostic provider on a person, the method comprising: generating, by using one or more processors of a first computing system operated and/or provided by the medical diagnostic provider, a health profile for the person based upon the medical diagnostic examination performed by the medical diagnostic provider on the person; identifying, by using the one or more processors of the first computing system and based upon the health profile for the person, a plurality of insurance policy offers, from a plurality of insurance providers for insurance that requires a medical diagnostic examination to be performed, that the person is eligible for as a pre-approved potential insured party; triggering, by using the one or more processors of the first computing system, generation of a plurality of underwritten binding quotes for respective ones of the plurality of insurance policy offers from the plurality of insurance providers by providing, using a network interface of the first computing system and via an electronic or communications network, the health profile for the person to a plurality of insurance provider computing systems that are operated and/or provided by the plurality of insurance providers; receiving, via the network interface of the first computing system and the electronic or communications network from the plurality of insurance provider computing systems associated with the plurality of insurance policy offers, the plurality of binding quotes for respective ones of the plurality of insurance policies, each of the one or more binding quotes generated by a respective one of the plurality of insurance provider computing systems based upon the health profile of the person, the health profile being a sole indication of a quality of health of the person used by the plurality of insurance provider computing systems to generate the plurality of binding quotes; and presenting, at a user interface, the plurality of underwritten binding quotes that are generated based upon completion of the medical diagnostic examination on the person.

“11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the system is operated and/or provided by the medical diagnostic provider that completed the medical diagnostic examination for the person.

“12. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of insurance policy offers includes offers for at least one of a life insurance policy, a long-term care insurance policy, or a disability insurance policy.

“13. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of insurance policy offers includes different types of insurance policies.

“14. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising: receiving an indication of a selection of one of the binding quotes; and providing, via the network interface, an indication that the one of the binding quotes has been selected to the respective insurance provider computing system.

“15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising: receiving an indication that the one of the binding quotes has been bound by the respective insurance provider; and at least one of refunding or crediting to the person a cost of the medical diagnostic examination completed for the person upon receiving the indication that the one of the binding quotes has been bound.

“16. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising generating the health profile of the person based upon the stored results of another medical diagnostic examination.

“17. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising providing, to the insurance provider computing systems, one or more preferred insurance policy terms in conjunction with the health profile of the person, wherein the insurance provider computing systems generate the binding quotes based upon the one or more preferred insurance policy terms.

“18. The computer-implemented method of claim 17, wherein the one or more preferred insurance policy terms include at least one of an amount of a premium payment, a term length, an insurance provider rating, a desired type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, or another insurance policy term; and wherein at least one of the one or more preferred insurance policy terms is defined by at least one of the person, an agent of the person, or the insurance provider.

“19. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the medical diagnostic examination performed on the person at least one of includes (i) an invasive procedure, or (ii) is performed as part of an annual physical examination of the respective subject.

“20. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, further comprising selecting the plurality of insurance providers based upon the health profile of the person and/or one or more types of insurance.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Roll, Leif Agerholm. Medical diagnostic-initiated insurance offering. U.S. Patent Number 11501382, filed September 18, 2020, and published online on November 15, 2022.

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