Patent Issued for System and method for online automobile insurance quoting (USPTO 12008655): Truist Bank
2024 JUL 03 (NewsRx) -- By a
The assignee for this patent, patent number 12008655, is
Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Electronic commerce has made it easier for a consumer to obtain information and/or make a purchase of a product or service from an online seller. However, if the customer desires to compare the products/services offered by different sellers, the customer usually must interface with each seller’s website one at a time in order to determine which seller’s product/service is the one best suited to the customer’s needs. At each interface, the customer must enter information, data, preferences, and the like which can be tedious and time consuming. Additionally, each of the sellers may have certain restrictions or limitations on their products/services such that the customer must alter his or her criteria for each seller thus making the ultimate comparison between the various products/services overly complicated. Furthermore, there is generally only one mode of communication available to the customer for any particular seller, e.g., online, telephonic, in person, etc. thus making the process inconvenient and time-consuming as the customer must finish the interaction once it is begun or risk having to restart the interaction from the beginning.
“Another problem faced by the consumer is that pre-purchase and after-purchase resources of typical online sellers are offered in a disjoint manner thereby requiring the consumer to maintain separate contact points for such things as cross-sell benefits and opportunities, follow-up servicing for the purchased product/service, and potential future upgrades or downgrades as the consumer may desire. Since these, and other, pre-purchase and post-purchase services are usually an important consideration to a consumer when deciding to make a purchase, the inability to adequately take these services into account due to the arrangement of typical online businesses places a serious burden on the consumer. The resulting inefficiencies of making a purchase usually works to the detriment of the consumer as he or she, being daunted by the effort necessary to adequately vet a purchase, must make a decision based on incomplete, or perhaps even misleading, information.
“The present disclosure describes novel systems and methods for overcoming the above-mentioned problems and shortcomings faced by a modern consumer. The present disclosure describes novel systems and methods for a customer to receive information and/or purchase a product or service while interacting with multiple vendors through a single contact/agency. The customer is able to communicate with the agency, which is typically an online agency, through a variety of communication modes. As used herein, an “online agency” includes a system and methods therefor which can communicate with both customers and vendors via any electronic (wired and/or wireless) communication mode including, but not limited to, online channels (e.g., from desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, mobile telephones, text messaging, instant messaging, etc.), offline channels, telephonic channels (wired or wireless), or combinations thereof. The online agency adapts the customer’s input as necessary to meet the requirements of the vendors and the online agency returns information to the customer so that the customer can conveniently interact with the multiple vendors. The online agency may also create packages from the information received from the vendors and present these packages to the customer to ease the customer’s burden of reviewing an abundance of information. The systems and methods allow for the customer to stop and restart the process at various points using various communication modes. The online agency has the ability to present the customer with prospecting, sales, service, upgrades, cross-sells, up-sells, and other pre- and post-purchase services at the single point-of-contact agency. Thus, the efficiency of the information-gathering evolution for the consumer is greatly increased and the consumer is conveniently presented with relevant information without having to individually perform tedious information-gathering for each of the relevant prospective sellers.
“Accordingly, it is an object of the present disclosure to provide a system for providing information to a customer, from one or more predetermined sellers via one intermediary (or “online”) agency, for choosing a product. The system includes a first module for receiving from a customer a first set of information regarding a product, such as, but not limited to, a customer request for an online quote for a product or service and/or a customer request to purchase online the product or service, customer-specific information and requirements, an identification of the customer, an online banking identification of the customer, if such identification exists, etc. The system also includes a second module, which is operatively connected to the first module, for providing a second set of information to the customer based on the received first set of information. The second set of information may contain more specific information regarding the product/service desired by the customer. As a non-limiting example, if the customer is interested in purchasing a car insurance policy, the second set of information may contain requests such as the type and number of vehicles owned by the customer, whether the customer rents or owns his or her home, etc. In an embodiment, the second set of information includes information required by at least one of the one or more predetermined sellers. In a further embodiment, the second set of information includes information unique to one of the one or more predetermined sellers. As a non-limiting example, one insurance seller may have a limit on the number of incidents a person may have, above which that insurance seller may not sell insurance to that person, whereas another insurance seller may have a different limit on the number of incidents. As another non-limiting example, one insurance seller may have a limit on the number of drivers per insurance policy and/or the number of vehicles per policy, whereas another insurance seller may have different limits for one or both of drivers per policy and vehicles per policy. As yet another non-limiting example, one insurance seller may require either the full or partial Vehicle Identification Number (“VIN”) early in the processing of an insurance selling transaction while another insurance seller may not require the full or partial VIN until later in the selling transaction. One of skill in the art will readily understand that other differences between the predetermined sellers need to be taken into account and managed by the online agency in order to simplify the customer’s choice of the desired product or service. The system also includes a third module, which is operatively connected to the first module, for receiving and processing first customer data regarding the desired product. Continuing with the non-limiting car insurance example, the first customer data typically contains information specific to the desired car insurance, such as the type and amount of car insurance coverage desired, and may contain information such as a desired deductible limit and/or a desired maximum premium payment. This “raw” information received from the customer may need to be processed by the online agency so that the various predetermined insurance agencies with whom the online agency will be interfacing will be able to return insurance information for the customer that is relevant to the customer’s request. The system also includes a fourth module, which is operatively connected to the third module and to the one or more predetermined product providers, where the fourth module sends first processed customer data to the one or more product providers and receives first product data from the one or more product providers in response to the first processed customer data. Still continuing with the non-limiting insurance example, the first product data typically contains insurance quote information which is based on the first processed customer data.
“In another non-limiting example, the first customer data may contain information for servicing an existing car insurance policy, such as adding a new vehicle, adding a new driver, renewing a policy, etc. This “raw” information, just like in the example above, may need to be processed by the online agency so the one or more selected predetermined insurance agencies with whom the online agency will be interfacing will be able to return the proper information for the customer that is relevant to the customer’s request. Likewise, the information that is returned to the online agency from the insurance agency may need to be processed by the online agency so that the proper information may be sent to the customer in a format with which the customer is familiar and/or desires.
“Additionally, the third module sends the first product data to the customer and receives a product choice from the customer in response to the first product data. The third module also receives and processes second customer data regarding the customer’s product choice. As a non-limiting example, the second customer data may include revisions to the customer’s original insurance coverage requests made in the first customer data, such as a change in the type and/or amount of coverage, desired deductible limit, and/or a desired maximum premium payment. The second customer data typically, but not necessarily, is in response to the information in the first product data. The fourth module also sends the second processed customer data to one of the product providers associated with the customer’s product choice, and receives from the one product provider second product data in response to the second processed customer data. The third module also processes the second product data and sends the second product data to the customer.”
There is additional summary information. Please visit full patent to read further.
In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “With reference to the figures where like elements have been given like numerical designations to facilitate an understanding of the present subject matter, various embodiments of a system and method for an online agency are described. While the below discussion may at times, for exemplary purposes, discuss the invention in terms of providing information for, purchasing, and servicing an insurance policy, those of skill in the art will readily understand that the breadth and scope of the invention is not so limited and that the agency system and methods disclosed herein are applicable to a broad range of products and services.
“The present disclosure describes novel systems and methods for a customer to receive information and/or purchase a product or service while interacting, indirectly, with multiple providers through a single contact/agency. The customer is able to communicate with the agency through a variety of communication modes such as via an online channel, an offline channel, a telephonic channel, or combinations thereof. This flexibility allows the customer to interface with the agency in a manner which meets the customer’s needs for security as well as the customer’s particular comfort level for communication. For example, the customer may start an insurance application using the online channel, go offline, then resume the application process using the telephonic channel. Data entered by the customer during the online channel transaction is passed to the telephonic service channel personnel so that reentering of data is not required. Thus, the customer is not restricted to just one communication mode for a given process. The customer can use one, two, or more communication modes and switch between them as the customer sees fit. Therefore, the systems and methods described herein allow for the customer to stop and restart the process at various points using various communication modes.
“Another benefit of the present subject matter is that the agency with which the customer interacts shoulders the burden of interfacing with various predetermined providers. For example, if the customer is interested in purchasing car insurance, and the agency has, say, three providers of car insurance from which the agency is prepared to request quotes, the three insurance providers may have different requirements for how they receive information for their quotes. As a non-limiting example, if a customer wants
“Various embodiments of the present subject matter allow for the agency’s sales, solutions, and service centers to cooperatively interact. The agency has the ability to present the customer with prospecting, sales, service, upgrades, cross-sells (e.g., if the customer has purchased car insurance, the agency can ask the customer if he or she would like to also purchase homeowner’s insurance, renter’s insurance, etc., either as a package with the car insurance or from a different insurance provider altogether; can also cross-sell financial products and services), up-sells (e.g., inform the customer of coverages they did not select, inform the customer if their insurance purchase is at, below, or above the norm for others who are similar to the customer), and other pre- and post-purchase services at the single point-of-contact agency. As an example, because of this interaction, the customer may, using the one agency interface (with one or more communication channels), service existing policies, purchase a new policy of the same or a different type (e.g., a second car insurance policy or a new homeowner’s policy), add a driver or a vehicle to a car insurance policy, add a scheduled property coverage, request new insurance documentation, communicate with the agency through e-mail, chat, click to call, phone, etc. As a further example, if the customer has purchased an insurance policy from an insurance provider, via the agency, in order to renew the policy the customer need only interface with the agency rather than the insurance provider, as required by typical prior art systems. Thus, the agency can build brand loyalty throughout the entire purchase and servicing process.
“Post processing services offered by the agency, usually handled by the agency’s service sector, require an information flow similar to the information flow for sales services offered by the agency. With the service portion, the agency would have an interface, system, and process flow akin to that described herein for the agency’s sales interface, system and process flow. Just like the for the sales sector, the agency must build the interfaces with each of the carriers/vendors the agency will support in the service arena and these interface service calls would vary from carrier to carrier. As a non-limiting example, to add a vehicle with carrier A the agency may have to send to carrier A information regarding vehicle identification number (“VIN”), model year, and make and model; while for carrier B the agency may only need to send a VIN. A customer and/or client (as a non-limiting example, a client of an online bank) can enter his/her user ID and password with the agency over an appropriate communication channel, and perform any number of actions, such as, but not limited to: a view policy summary, a view policy document, make a payment, add/remove a vehicle (or other property) from a policy, add/remove a driver, receive targeted cross sell offers, etc.”
The claims supplied by the inventors are:
“1. A method comprising: receiving via a single user interface, by a first module of a processing device, a request for an insurance product from a customer; requesting through the single user interface, by the first module of the processing device, personal identifying information associated with the customer; transmitting, to a second module of the processing device, the personal identifying information associated with the customer; receiving, by the first module of the processing device, database information related to the customer from the second module of the processing device; adapting, by a third module of the processing device, the personal identifying information and the database information to meet different requirements of a plurality of insurance providers; determining, by the third module of the processing device, a plurality of potential insurance products for the customer based on the personal identifying information and the database information; concurrently receiving, by a fourth module of the processing device via a computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, a plurality of eligible insurance products selected from the plurality of potential insurance products based on requirements from the plurality of insurance providers; processing, by the processing device, the received plurality of eligible insurance products and the plurality of potential insurance products, wherein the processing includes organizing the received plurality of eligible insurance products and the plurality of potential insurance products into predetermined categories to form a first product data; formatting, by the third module of the processing device, the first product data according to a format specified by the customer; concurrently transmitting, by the third module of the processing device, the plurality of potential insurance products and the plurality of eligible insurance products to the customer; displaying, by the single user interface, the first product data in the format specified by the customer; receiving, via the single user interface, a product choice; processing, by the processing device, the product choice to form customer data; transmitting, via the computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, the customer data; responsive to the customer data, receiving from at least one of the plurality of insurance providers via the computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, second product data; processing, by the processing device, the second product data; and displaying, by the single user interface, the first product data in the format specified by the customer.
“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising prefilling fields in an application with the database information.
“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: storing the personal identifying information, via the second module, as the database information; and retrieving previously entered personal information as the database information upon a subsequent request for the insurance product.
“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: storing a first portion of customer information received from a first user device; storing a second portion of customer information received from a second user device; and combining the first portion of customer information and the second portion of customer information to produce the personal identifying information.
“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting to the customer an offer to alter the request for the insurance product based on the requirements from the plurality of insurance providers.
“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting an offer to an insurance provider to alter the insurance product based on the requirements from the plurality of insurance providers.
“7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting an at least one bundled insurance product based on the plurality of eligible insurance products.
“8. A system comprising: a processing device; and a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to: generate a single user interface; receive via the single user interface, by a first module of the processing device, a request for an insurance product from a customer; request through the single user interface, by the first module of the processing device, personal identifying information associated with the customer; transmit, to a second module of the processing device, the personal identifying information associated with the customer; receive, by the first module of the processing device, database information related to the customer from the second module of the processing device; adapt, by a third module of the processing device, the personal identifying information and the database information to meet different requirements of a plurality of insurance providers; determine, by the third module of the processing device, a plurality of potential insurance products for the customer based on the personal identifying information and the database information; concurrently receive, by a fourth module of the processing device via a computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, a plurality of eligible insurance products selected from the plurality of potential insurance products based on requirements from the plurality of insurance providers; process, by the processing device, the received plurality of eligible insurance products and the plurality of potential insurance products, wherein the processing includes organizing the received plurality of eligible insurance products and the plurality of potential insurance products into predetermined categories to form a first product data; format, by the third module of the processing device, the first product data according to a format specified by the customer; concurrently transmit, by the third module, the plurality of potential insurance products and the plurality of eligible insurance products to the customer; display, by the single user interface, the first product data in the format specified by the customer; receive, via the single user interface, a product choice; process, by the processing device, the product choice to form customer data; transmit, via the computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, the customer data; responsive to the customer data, receive from at least one of the plurality of insurance providers via the computer interface in communication with the plurality of insurance providers, second product data; process, by the processing device, the second product data; and display, by the single user interface, the first product data in the format specified by the customer.
“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to prefill fields in an application with the database information.
“10. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to: store the personal identifying information, via the second module, as the database information; and retrieve previously entered personal information as the database information upon a subsequent request for the insurance product.
“11. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to: store a first portion of customer information received from a first user device; store a second portion of customer information received from a second user device; and combine the first portion of customer information and the second portion of customer information to produce the personal identifying information.
“12. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to transmit to the customer an offer to alter the request for the insurance product based on the requirements from the plurality of insurance providers.
“13. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to transmit an offer to an insurance provide to alter the insurance product based on the requirements from the plurality of insurance providers.
“14. The system of claim 8, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable medium further comprises instructions that are executable by the processing device for causing the processing device to transmit an at least one bundled insurance product based on the plurality of eligible insurance products.”
There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.
For more information, see this patent: Bradshaw, Brandon. System and method for online automobile insurance quoting.
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