Patent Issued for Self-optimizing, multi-channel, cognitive digital health and life insurance rate quoting, comparison shopping and enrollment system and method (USPTO 11636509): Patty LLC

2023 MAY 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Cohen, Seth (Lighthouse, FL, US), Silvestre, Luis (Miramar, FL, US), filed on July 31, 2020, was published online on April 25, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11636509 is assigned to Patty LLC (Deerfield Beach, Florida, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors:

“Field of the Invention

“The present invention relates to a performance internet marketing self-optimizing, anthropomorphic, artificial intelligence-based system and method to quote, compare and purchase life and health insurance, or benefits products and services (hereinafter “benefits products”) from an insurance benefits provider, benefits company, healthcare discount plan provider, health care sharing ministry, or similar entities (hereinafter “benefits provider(s)”) through a cognitive virtual process via phone, mobile device, tablet, app, SMS, chat, iMessage, videoconference, or virtual reality (hereinafter “method(s) of communication”).

“Description of the Related Art

“Consumers of benefits products commonly use comparison shopping internet websites to research and compare available options. Benefits products comparison shopping websites attempt to guide consumers through intricate product variations from multiple benefits providers. The consumer often struggles to identify adequate affordable coverage and plan options in the marketplace due to a disarray of benefits products ranging from various types (on-exchange, off-exchange, limited indemnity medical, short term medical, ministry, cost sharing), levels of coverage (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze at the federal level), premiums, co-pays, membership fees, deductibles, and limitations. A state of asymmetric information for products across the individual marketplace exists and potentially leads the consumer to adverse selection.

“Due to the nature of the chaotic environment, the individual marketplace is also an outlet for fraudulent benefits products. In many cases, consumers seek the assistance of a licensed insurance agent, producer or broker (hereinafter “agent”) to select a benefits product. It is common in the individual marketplace for a consumer to speak with an agent by phone to review available Benefits product options and complete the benefits provider’s enrollment process. The agent typically enters the consumer’s underwriting details into a rate quoting calculator or web form to obtain rates, explains the differences between plan options from various benefits providers, and transcribes the enrollment details onto the benefits provider’s application or enrollment portal on behalf of the consumer.

“In many cases, the agent is appointed to represent a limited number of benefits providers thus limiting the consumer’s choices to only plans offered by those benefits providers. Compensation arrangements for insurance agents also typically include commissions (a percentage of premium as paid by the benefits provider) or another form of compensation (e.g., marketing fees). Agent bias, thus, is also potentially a significant factor in adverse selection.

“Conventional systems have been used for extracting user data to identify available insurance plans based on responses from the consumer. U.S. Pat. No. 9,495,700 describes the use of branded virtual characters on a server computer which are accessed by an employee at a remote client computer over a network in order to engage and educate users regarding alternate benefit plans. Throughout the process, the system employs a portfolio-driven approach to identify inter-dependencies among different benefit products and plans and prioritize and recommend “portfolio-level” benefit solutions. The employee can be automatically enrolled in the selected benefit plan. This system has the drawback of needing a computer interface to access the system over the internet and can be cumbersome for a person to navigate, especially the elderly or unsophisticated computer users.

“It is desirable to provide an unbiased, anthropomorphic, artificial intelligence-based telephonic system and method to identify the consumer’s available benefits product options based on eligibility, assist in the comparison of different options, automatically enroll the consumer into selected plans available from various insurers, and self-optimize the online performance marketing campaign for referring the consumer to the system.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present invention relates to an anthropomorphic, artificial intelligence-based system to optimize real-time marketing spend using historical performance data and real time buying signals and to drive consumers to the action of quoting, comparing, and purchasing benefits products in real time. The process of real time optimization can use an application programming interface (“API”) to relay critical performance metrics from a cognitive virtual assistant to online advertising platforms. The online advertising platforms can be search engines, such as for example, Google Adwords, Microsoft Bing, & Yahoo Gemini. Search engines are online advertising platforms that offer advertisers the ability to purchase an ad listing which prompts the consumer to visit a website or call a phone number if the consumer types a specified search query. In addition, real-time optimization of referring search marketing campaigns occurs via API by relaying critical performance metrics from the cognitive virtual assistant to an online third-party search engine or lead aggregator bidding platforms. In one embodiment, the online bidding platform uses a ping post method to allow a lead seller to send partial information, the “ping”, of a lead to their network of lead buyers. The buyer then determines whether he or she would like to purchase the lead based on this information and obtains contact information from the seller via the “post.”

“Search engines often display multiple advertisers’ ads for the same search query and give full control to the advertiser over the search queries they choose to display their ads on. The ad position for each unique search query is determined primarily by a maximum cost-per-click (“CPC”) which dictates the highest amount that an advertiser is willing to spend for a click on a website advertisement or a phone call. In addition to specifying a max CPC for each keyword query, the advertiser is also given tools to increase or decrease their max CPC based upon demographics of the consumer, such as for example gender, age, household income, parental status, and location along with environmental factors, such as for example time of day and day of week. Every unique ad listing a search engine displays to a consumer takes the above factors into consideration to determine a final ad position.

“In the present invention, if the consumer chooses to click through via an ad listing of the advertiser, a click tracking identification (ID) is generated by the search engine which is unique to the consumer’s click. The click tracking ID can be linked back to the consumer whether they choose to complete an insurance application online or call in from the website and complete an application over the phone.

“In the present invention, the process of optimization can use an API from the cognitive virtual assistant to deliver a status of the application back to the search engine using a status tracking ID generated by the search engine. By delivering the performance data, such as for example successful applications, from the cognitive virtual assistant to the search engine, real time performance of each unique keyword query on an application level can be determined along with performance factors, such as gender, age, household income, parental status, and location, along with environmental factors, such as time of day and day of the week. The system can make real time, automatic optimization using the search engines’ API to control max CPC and demographic-specific bids based upon current application performance to, in turn, optimize marketing spend and drive future applications automatically.

“The user (a buyer, consumer, or system herein referred to as “user”) initiates a session via various methods of communication. In one embodiment, a session is initiated by a user using one of the selected methods of communication. For voice sessions, audio interfaces of the system allow multi-language bidirectional speech-based conversations between the cognitive virtual assistant and the user. As the user speaks to the cognitive assistant, the process of automated speech recognition (ASR) digitally converts audible speech into transcribed text. Through natural language processing, including sentiment and tone analysis, the system evaluates the meaning and context of the transcribed text and adjusts the language and tone of the cognitive virtual assistant’s responses accordingly to accommodate the user. Context-switching capability of the system allows the user to interrupt and restart any embedded process while retaining the user’s information. The system can include anepisodic memory to allow the cognitive virtual assistant to recall details from previous segments of the current conversation or previous conversations altogether. The cognitive virtual assistant can be implemented in a conversational manner for receiving information from a user and generating responses using cognitive learning abilities during the conversation. The cognitive learning abilities of the cognitive virtual assistant can also include analytic memory for understanding trend of data, affective memory for understanding emotion and deep back projection networks (“DBPN”) for learning process flows via empirical learning. The cognitive virtual assistant can be considered to be a “trusted” virtual producer for the user as compared to a human motivated to make any sale.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising the steps of: a. initiating an interface to a cognitive virtual assistant by matching one or more user search terms entered in an online advertising platform and displaying a link to connect with the cognitive virtual assistant and receiving by the cognitive virtual assistant, audible speech from the user interface during a conversation of a user with the cognitive virtual assistant, digitally converting, by the cognitive virtual assistant, the audible speech into transcribed text, generating data and responses by interpreting the transcribed text with artificial intelligence using cognitive learning abilities at a processor of the computer, forwarding the responses to the user interface during the conversation; b. prompting, by the cognitive virtual assistant, the user during the conversation for information and a description of one or more benefits products which are of interest to the user for purchase or enrollment; c. receiving, by the cognitive virtual assistant via one or more of a benefits provider application interfaces, data from an application server of one or more benefits providers for the one or more benefits products; d. identifying, by the cognitive virtual assistant, eligibility of the user for purchase or enrollment in the one or more benefits products which are of interest by the user based on eligibility determined from the data collected from the user by the cognitive virtual assistant during the conversation and the data collected from the one or more benefits provider application interfaces e. presenting, by the cognitive virtual assistant, the one or more benefits products identified in step d. to the user during the conversation; f. completing, by the cognitive virtual assistant, application requirements of the one or more benefits products; and g. communicating, by the cognitive virtual assistant, the application requirements to a respective one or more benefits providers.

“2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of prompting, by the cognitive virtual assistant, a user for information includes prompting the user to answer one or more pre-qualifying questions and eligibility of the user for purchase or enrollment in the one or more benefits products being based on answers to the one or more pre-qualifying questions.

“3. The method of claim 1 further comprising adjusting parameters of the virtual assistant to accommodate the user.

“4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of receiving, by the cognitive virtual assistant, enrolled policy information after enrollment and presenting, by the cognitive virtual assistant, the enrolled policy.

“5. The method of claim 1 wherein the user interface to the cognitive virtual assistant is via audio, phone, mobile device, tablet, app, SMS, chat, videoconference, or virtual reality.

“6. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of collecting information, by the cognitive virtual assistant, from the online advertising platform and the cognitive virtual assistant during one or more of steps a. through f and returning the collected information to the online advertising platform.

“7. The method of claim 6 further comprising the step of improving the online advertising platform by improving ad position for each unique search query of the one or more search terms entered in the online advertising platform to increase or decrease a max cost-per click (CPC) based upon demographics of the user determined by using the collected information from the online advertising platform.

“8. The method of claim 7 wherein the collected information from the online advertising platform includes tracking user click information using the online advertising platform and the step of improving the online advertising platform uses the tracking user click information to generate a click tracking identification (ID) by the online advertising platform during step a. and the click tracking identification (ID) being used during steps b. through f.

“9. The method of claim 7 wherein step of improving the online advertising platform provides a status of the step of completing application requirements of the identified one or more relevant benefits products to the online advertising platform.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Cohen, Seth. Self-optimizing, multi-channel, cognitive digital health and life insurance rate quoting, comparison shopping and enrollment system and method. U.S. Patent Number 11636509, filed July 31, 2020, and published online on April 25, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11636509)&db=USPAT&type=ids

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)