Patent Issued for System To Administer Insurance Knowledge Management Tool (USPTO 10,217,171)

2019 MAR 08 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Wagner, Mark Richard (West Hartford, CT); Stevens, Sandra J. (Mansfield Center, CT); Lellock, Belinda A. (Clearbrook, VA); Ma’luf, Anthony Jason (Winston-Salem, NC); Grashaw, Kurt E. (Tariffville, CT), filed on December 15, 2014, was published online on March 11, 2019, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 10,217,171 is assigned to Hartford Fire Insurance Company (Hartford, Connecticut, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “An insurer may provide payments when claims are made in connection with an insurance policy. For example, an insurance customer who is injured while visiting a business may contact an insurance company requesting payment in connection with a liability or group benefit insurance policy that was purchased by the business. Similarly, an insurance customer who was involved in an automobile accident may contact an insurance company requesting payment in connection with his or her automobile insurance policy. In addition to submitting new insurance claims, insurance customers might contact an insurance company for any of a number of other reasons, such as to inquire about the current status of a previously filed claim, to ask about a hypothetical situation, to determine office hours, etc. The insurer may assign a service representative to communicate with an insurance customer to receive relevant information about a new or existing insurance claim (e.g., party names and addresses, accident details, injury information, etc.) and/or to help the customer in other ways.

“In one approach, a service representative receives training and/or customer care documents to help him or her respond to customer requests appropriately. This, however, may be a time consuming process and can lead to errors or delays while interacting with the customer, especially when there are a substantial number of customer requests, of many different types, that need responses. For example, an insurer might receive tens of thousands of insurance customer telephone calls (which might represent a substantial number of different types of team member interactions with customers). It would therefore be desirable to provide systems and methods to facilitate interactions between insurance customers and service representatives in an automated, efficient, and accurate manner.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “According to some embodiments, systems, methods, apparatus, computer program code and means may facilitate interactions between insurance customers and service representatives. In some embodiments, a communication may be received from a customer in connection with an insurance policy. A system may then transmit, to a service representative device, data associated with an insurance knowledge management enterprise portal displaying information to facilitate interaction with the customer. A type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer may be determined, and customized data associated with the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal may be transmitted to the service representative device, the customized data being based at least in part on the type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer.

“A technical effect of some embodiments of the invention is an improved and computerized method to facilitate interactions between insurance customers and service representatives. With these and other advantages and features that will become hereinafter apparent, a more complete understanding of the nature of the invention can be obtained by referring to the following detailed description and to the drawings appended hereto.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“What is claimed is:

“1. A system including an enterprise data sharing architecture for insurance knowledge management, comprising: a communication device to receive a communication from a customer in connection with an insurance policy; a computer storage unit for receiving, storing, and providing data indicative of the communication from the customer; a knowledge management database storing insurance knowledge management enterprise portal information; and a knowledge management platform processor in communication with the communication device, the storage unit, and the knowledge management database, wherein the processor is configured for: receiving the communication from the customer in connection with the insurance policy; responsive to receiving the communication for the customer, rendering, by a knowledge management platform processor for display to a service representative device, a knowledge management portal home page which includes (i) a plurality of hoverable icons including an open call icon, an identify caller icon, and a determine call reason icon, wherein each hoverable icon is configured for dynamically rendering, responsive to movement of a cursor over the respective hoverable icon, a hover-over window including information to facilitate interaction with the customer to obtain caller identity data and call reason data, and wherein each hoverable icon is configured to close the hover-over window responsive to movement of the cursor away from the respective hoverable icon, and (ii) a line of business dashboard including a listing of line of business links, each link corresponding to a different line of business, wherein selection of one link of the listing of links causes navigation to a corresponding line of business page display including information about the line of business; automatically determining, by the knowledge management platform processor, a role identifier associated with the service representative device; receiving, by the knowledge management platform processor from the service representative device, a selection of a line of business; determining a type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer, the insurance event being associated with insurance claim processing for one of two different potential lines of insurance, and rendering, for display on the service representative device, customized data associated with the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal, said customized data being based at least in part on the determined type of insurance event and the role identifier associated with the service representative device, said customized data including: (i) a scripting procedures dashboard including a list of selectable scripts, wherein selection of one of the scripts causes a pop-up display of a corresponding script to be displayed over at least a portion of a currently displayed page; and (ii) a dynamically updated tools dashboard displaying a list of most accessed information links, wherein selection of one link of the listing of most accessed information links causes navigation to a corresponding page display, wherein links on the list of most accessed information links are selected based upon the role identifier associated with the service representative device and the type of insurance event, and wherein the list of most accessed information links provided on the tools dashboard is dynamically updated based upon data collected by an analytics engine indicating a number of times each link available through the knowledge management platform was accessed by service representative devices during a pre-defined period of time.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein said service representative device is associated with at least one of: (i) a call center, (ii) an insurance claim processor, (iii) an analyst, and (iv) a customer care team member.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein said customized data further comprises at least one of: (i) data selected from the knowledge management database, and (ii) data dynamically modified by the knowledge management platform in substantially real time.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the knowledge management platform processor is further configured for: automatically determining an insurance policy identifier associated with the insurance policy, and said customized data is further based at least in part on information accessed using the automatically determined insurance policy identifier.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication from the customer comprises an incoming telephone call.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the potential lines of insurance are associated with at least one of: (i) commercial automobile insurance, (ii) personal automobile insurance, (iii) general liability insurance, (iv) homeowners liability insurance, (v) commercial property insurance, (vi) group benefits insurance, and (vii) personal property insurance.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the insurance event is associated with at least one of: (i) a new insurance claim, (ii) an existing insurance claim, and (iii) a hypothetical insurance claim.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the customized data is associated with a replacement display.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal includes an insurance policy identifier search function, the insurance policy is associated with an insurer, and said search function is able to search identifiers including identifiers not associated with the insurer.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the analytics engine is configured to collect data associated with a plurality of communications from a plurality of customers.

“11. The system of claim 10, wherein the analytics engine is further configured to collect data associated with a plurality of service representative devices.

“12. The system of claim 1, wherein the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal is able to automatically receive feedback information from at least one of: (i) the service representative device, and (ii) the customer.

“13. A computer-implemented method associated with insurance knowledge management, comprising: receiving a communication from a customer in connection with an insurance policy; responsive to receiving the communication from the customer, rendering, by a knowledge management platform processor for display to a service representative device, a knowledge management portal home page which includes (i) a plurality of hoverable icons including an open call icon, an identify caller icon, and a determine call reason icon, wherein each hoverable icon is configured to dynamically render, responsive to movement of a cursor over the respective hoverable icon, a hover-over window including information to facilitate interaction with the customer to obtain caller identity data and call reason data, and wherein each hoverable icon is configured to close the hover-over window responsive to movement of the cursor away from the respective hoverable icon, and (ii) a line of business dashboard including a listing of line of business links, each link corresponding to a different line of business, wherein selection of one link of the listing of links causes navigation to a corresponding line of business page display including information about the line of business; automatically determining, by the knowledge management platform processor, a role identifier associated with the service representative device; receiving, by the knowledge management platform processor from the service representative device, a selection of a line of business; automatically determining, by the knowledge management platform processor, a type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer, the insurance event being associated with insurance claims processing; and automatically rendering, by the knowledge management platform processor for display on the service representative device, customized data associated with the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal, said customized data being based at least in part on the type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer and the role identifier associated with the service representative device, said customized data including: (i) a scripting procedures dashboard including a list of selectable scripts, wherein selection of one of the scripts causes a pop-up display of a corresponding script to be displayed over at least a portion of a currently displayed page; and (ii) a dynamically updated tools dashboard displaying a list of most accessed information links, wherein selection of one link of the listing of most accessed information links causes navigation to a corresponding page display, wherein links on the list of most accessed information links are selected based upon the role identifier associated with the service representative device and the type of insurance event, and wherein the list of most accessed information links provided on the tools dashboard is dynamically updated based upon data collected by an analytics engine indicating a number of times each link available through the knowledge management platform was accessed by service representative devices during a pre-defined period of time.

“14. The method of claim 13, further comprising: automatically determining, by the knowledge management platform processor, an insurance policy identifier associated with the insurance policy, and said customized data is further based at least in part on information accessed using the automatically determined insurance policy identifier.

“15. The method of claim 13, wherein the communication from the customer comprises an incoming telephone call, and the insurance policy is associated with at least one of: (i) commercial automobile insurance, (ii) personal automobile insurance, (iii) general liability insurance, (iv) homeowners liability insurance, (v) commercial property insurance, (vi) group benefits insurance, and (vii) personal property insurance.

“16. A system for insurance knowledge management, comprising: a communication device to receive a communication from a customer in connection with an insurance policy; a computer storage unit for receiving, storing, and providing data indicative of the communication from the customer; a knowledge management database storing insurance knowledge management enterprise portal information; and a knowledge management platform processor in communication with the communication device, the storage unit, and the knowledge management database, wherein the processor is configured for: receiving the communication from the customer in connection with the insurance policy; responsive to receiving the communication from the customer, rendering, by a knowledge management platform processor for display to a service representative device, a knowledge management portal home page which includes (i) a plurality of hoverable icons including an open call icon, an identify caller icon, and a determine call reason icon, wherein each hoverable icon is configured for dynamically rendering, responsive to movement of a cursor over the respective hoverable icon, a hover-over window including information to facilitate interaction with the customer to obtain caller identity data and call reason data, and wherein each hoverable icon is configured to close the hover-over window responsive to movement of the cursor away from the respective hoverable icon, and (ii) a line of business dashboard including a listing of line of business links, each link corresponding to a different line of business, wherein selection of one link of the listing of links causes navigation to a corresponding line of business page display including information about the line of business; receiving, by the knowledge management platform processor from the service representative device, a selection of a line of business; determining a type of insurance event associated with the communication from the customer, the insurance event being associated with insurance claim processing, automatically determining a role identifier associated with the service representative device, automatically determining an insurance policy identifier associated with the insurance policy, rendering, for display on the service representative device, customized data associated with the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal, said customized data being based at least in part on the determined type of insurance event and information accessed using the automatically determined role identifier and insurance policy identifier, said customized data including: (i) a scripting procedures dashboard including a list of selectable scripts, wherein selection of one of the scripts causes a pop-up display of a corresponding script to be displayed over at least a portion of a currently displayed page; and (ii) a dynamically updated tools dashboard displaying a list of most accessed information links, wherein selection of one link of the listing of most accessed information links causes navigation to a corresponding page display, wherein links on the list of most accessed information links are selected based upon the role identifier associated with the service representative device and the type of insurance event, and wherein the list of most accessed information links provided on the tools dashboard is dynamically updated based upon data collected by an analytics engine indicating a number of times each link available through the knowledge management platform was accessed by service representative devices during a pre-defined period of time.

“17. The system of claim 16, wherein the communication from the customer comprises an incoming telephone call, and the insurance policy is associated with at least one of: (i) commercial automobile insurance, (ii) personal automobile insurance, (iii) general liability insurance, (iv) homeowners liability insurance, (v) commercial property insurance, (vi) group benefits insurance, and (vii) personal property insurance.

“18. The system of claim 17, wherein the insurance knowledge management enterprise portal includes an insurance policy identifier search function, the insurance policy is associated with an insurer, and said search function is able to search identifiers including identifiers not associated with the insurer.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Wagner, Mark Richard; Stevens, Sandra J.; Lellock, Belinda A.; Ma’luf, Anthony Jason; Grashaw, Kurt E. System To Administer Insurance Knowledge Management Tool. U.S. Patent Number 10,217,171, filed December 15, 2014, and published online on March 11, 2019. 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=10,217,171.PN.&OS=PN/10,217,171RS=PN/10,217,171

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