Patent Issued for System To Administer Risk Transfer And Property Salvage Recovery (USPTO 10,650,460)

2020 MAY 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Bostic, Daniel Lee (Naugatuck, CT); Edwards, Paul J. (West Hartford, CT); Reed, Andrew J (Peoria, AZ); Scott, Michael Adam (Carmel, IN); Shemesh, Keren (West Haven, CT), filed on June 22, 2015, was published online on May 25, 2020.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 10,650,460 is Hartford Fire Insurance Company (Hartford, Connecticut, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote 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 employee who is injured while working might receive payments associated with a workers’ compensation insurance policy purchased by his or her employer. The insurer may assign a claim handler to communicate with a claimant, an employer, another insurer, and/or medical service providers to help determine the appropriate amount of payment.

“In some cases, an insurer may have an opportunity to recover some or all of the payments made in connection with an insurance claim. Consider, for example, an insurance claim associated with a claimant who fell while walking on a sidewalk. In this case, another insurer associated with a construction company that was working on the sidewalk when the injury occurred may be responsible for some or all of the claimant’s injury. In the case of a property insurance claim, as another example, a damaged piece of property may still have some salvage value that may be recovered by the insurer. Typically, a claim handler working for an insurer will manually review an insurance claim to determine if any recovery opportunities exist. However, manually determining if recovery opportunities exist can be a time consuming and error prone task, especially when there are a substantial number of claims, of many different types and/or from many different locations, to be processed. For example, an insurer might receive tens of thousands of new insurance claims each year (which might represent a substantial number of potential recovery opportunities to be uncovered and processed). It would therefore be desirable to provide systems and methods to facilitate the detection and/or processing of recovery opportunities in an automated, efficient, and accurate manner.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “According to some embodiments, systems, methods, apparatus, computer program code and means may facilitate the detection and/or processing of recovery opportunities. In some embodiments, data may be received indicative of a plurality of insurance claims. A recovery opportunity platform processor may, based on the received data, identify an insurance claim as being associated with a potential recovery opportunity. For the identified insurance claim, the recovery opportunity platform processor may automatically arrange for a potential recovery user interface to be displayed to a claim handler and may receive, via the potential recovery user interface, recovery details from the claim handler. A summary report may be automatically generated for a plurality of insurance claims based in part on the recovery details received from the claim handler, and an indication of the summary report may be transmitted.

“A technical effect of some embodiments of the invention is an improved and computerized method to facilitate the detection and/or processing of recovery opportunities. 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 computer system, comprising: a communication device to receive data indicative of a plurality of insurance claims submitted in connection with insurance policies, the received data including determinate data and indeterminate data; a computer storage unit for receiving, storing, and providing said data indicative of the plurality of insurance claims; a risk transfer opportunity platform processor in communication with the storage unit, wherein the processor is configured for: based on the received determinate and indeterminate data, determining, employing a computerized predictive model trained on historical claim data including at least monetary information, demographic information, medical bill information, and claim notes, and prior risk transfer results, and further trained subsequently on current claim data and risk transfer results, whether, for a plurality of the insurance claims, there is another party potentially responsible for the insurance claim, the claims for which there is another party potentially responsible for the claim being identified as being associated with a potential risk transfer opportunity, and a likelihood of salvage recovery opportunities, wherein the historical claim data is scrubbed of erroneous values and subjected to data reduction to reduce variables associated with one another, categorizing of raw values to reduce granularity, and data transformations to improve interpretability, model fit or adherence to modeling assumptions prior to training the computerized predictive model; responsive to the determination, proceeding to one of (a) or (b): (a) for the insurance claims for which another party is determined to be potentially responsible, automatically arranging for a potential risk transfer user interface to be displayed to a claim handler, the potential risk transfer interface including fields for entry of data regarding at least a name of a potentially responsible party, a type of association with the claim of the potentially responsible party, and a liability percentage, receiving, via the potential risk transfer user interface, recovery details from the claim handler, including an overall total damages value and a risk transfer value, automatically generate in the potential risk transfer user interface a pop-up window that displays a set of planned activities including a review of risk transfer activity having a due date, priority, and assigned claim handler, automatically generating a summary report associated with a plurality of insurance claims based in part on the overall total damages value and risk transfer value received from the claim handler, and transmitting an indication of the summary report; (b) for the insurance claims for which no other party is determined to be responsible, identify the claims for normal insurance claim processing, without automatically arranging for a potential risk transfer user interface to be displayed to a claim handler; and a property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor configured to automatically communicate potential salvage recovery opportunities identified by the computerized predictive model to salvage specialists and determine property salvage recovery amounts based on information received from salvage specialists via a graphical user interface.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor is further configured for: arranging to track recovery payments received for the insurance claims for which another party is determined to be potentially responsible.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is adapted to process insurance claims associated with any of: (i) automobile insurance, (ii) homeowners insurance, (iii) property insurance, (iv) general liability insurance, (v) commercial insurance, (vi) personal insurance, and (vii) workers’ compensation insurance.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor is further configured for: automatically transmitting an indication of a recovery amount to at least one of: (i) an email server, (ii) a workflow application, (iii) a report generator, (iv) a calendar application, and (v) a payment facilitation device.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the determining whether there is another party potentially responsible for the insurance claim is based at least in part on rules associated with transitions between subrogation statuses and a type of insurance associated with the insurance claim.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the overall total damages value includes a low and a high estimate and the risk transfer value includes a low and a high estimate.

“7. The system of claim 6, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor stores, for each risk transfer recovery opportunity, at least one of: (i) a responsible party, (ii) a role, (iii) a liability amount, (iv) a risk transfer type, (v) other coverage data, and (vii) related information.

“8. The system of claim 6, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor stores, for each risk transfer opportunity, a risk transfer strategy.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the risk transfer strategy is associated with a plurality of planned activities, each including: (i) a date due, (ii) a priority, (iii) a subject, and (iv) an assigned party to perform the planned activity.

“10. The system of claim 6, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor stores, for each risk transfer opportunity, at least one of: (i) a responsible party name, (ii) a carrier, (iii) contact information, (iv) an insurance policy identifier, and (v) a claim identifier.

“11. The system of claim 6, wherein the risk transfer opportunity platform processor stores, for each risk transfer recovery opportunity, at least one of: (i) a recovery monetary value, and (ii) a recovery percentage.

“12. The system of claim 1, wherein the property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor stores, for each property salvage recovery opportunity, at least one of: (i) a salvage status, (ii) a salvage specialist identifier, (iii) a date of referral, (iv) a category, (vi) a salvage item, (vii) an estimate salvage amount, (viii) an owner retained indication, (ix) an amount paid for property, (x) an actual salvage value, (xi) an expense total, and (xii) a recovered total value.

“13. The system of claim 1, wherein the property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor is further configured to automatically adjust a recovery reserve amount.

“14. The system of claim 1, wherein said automatic identification of the insurance claim as being associated with a potential recovery opportunity is based on rules and data received from the claim handler.

“15. The system of claim 1, wherein said automatic identification of the insurance claim as being associated with a potential recovery opportunity is associated with a predictive model trained with historical insurance claim information.

“16. The system of claim 15, wherein the predictive model is associated with at least one of: (i) a neural network, (ii) a Bayesian network, (iii) a Hidden Markov model, (iv) an expert system, (v) a decision tree, (vii) a collection of decision trees, (viii) a support vector machine, and (ix) weighted factors.

“17. A computer-implemented method, comprising: receiving, by a communication device, data indicative of a plurality of insurance claims submitted in connection with insurance policies, the received data including determinate data and indeterminate data; storing, by a computer storage unit, said data indicative of the plurality of insurance claims; based on the received determinate and indeterminate data, automatically determining by a risk transfer opportunity platform processor employing a computerized predictive model trained on historical claim data including at least monetary information, demographic information, medical bill information, and claim notes, and prior risk transfer results, and further trained subsequently on current claim data and risk transfer results, whether, for a plurality of the insurance claims, there is another party potentially responsible for the insurance claim, the claims for which there is another party potentially responsible for the claim being identified as being associated with a potential risk transfer opportunity, and a likelihood of salvage recovery opportunities, wherein the historical claim data is scrubbed of erroneous values and subjected to data reduction to reduce variables associated with one another, categorizing of raw values to reduce granularity, and data transformations to improve interpretability, model fit or adherence to modeling assumptions prior to training the computerized predictive model; responsive to the determination, proceeding to one of (a) or (b): (a) for the insurance claims identified as being associated with a potential risk transfer opportunity, automatically arranging by the risk transfer opportunity platform processor for a potential risk transfer user interface to be displayed to a claim handler, the potential risk transfer interface including fields for entry of data regarding at least a name of a potentially responsible party, a type of association with the claim of the potentially responsible party, and a liability percentage, receiving, via the potential risk transfer user interface by the recovery opportunity platform processor, recovery details from the claim handler, including an overall total damages value and a risk transfer value, automatically generating by the risk transfer opportunity processor in the potential risk transfer user interface a pop-up window that displays a set of planned activities including a review of risk transfer activity having a due date, priority, and assigned claim handler, and automatically generating by the risk transfer opportunity platform processor a summary report associated with a plurality of insurance claims based in part on the overall total damages value and the risk transfer value received from the claim handler, transmitting an indication of the summary report; (b) for the insurance claims for which no other party is determined to be responsible, identifying, by the risk transfer opportunity platform processor, the claims for normal insurance claim processing, without automatically arranging for a potential risk transfer user interface to be displayed to a claim handler; receiving, by a property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor, data indicative of at least one of the insurance claims, automatically communicating, by the property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor, potential salvage recovery opportunities identified by the computerized predictive model to salvage specialists and determining, by the property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor, property salvage recovery amounts based on information received from salvage specialists via a graphical user interface.

“18. The method of claim 17, wherein said automatic determination of whether there is another party potentially responsible for the insurance claim is based on rules and data received from the claim handler.

“19. The method of claim 17, wherein said automatic identification of the insurance claim as being associated with a potential risk transfer opportunity is associated with a predictive model trained with historical insurance claim information.

“20. A system for insurance claim processing, comprising: a communication device to receive data indicative of a plurality of insurance claims submitted in connection with insurance policies; a computer storage unit for receiving, storing, and providing said data indicative of the plurality of insurance claims; a risk transfer opportunity platform processor in communication with the storage unit, wherein the processor is configured for: based on the received data, the received data including determinate and indeterminate data, determining, employing a computerized predictive model trained on historical claim data including at least monetary information, demographic information, medical bill information, and claim notes, and prior risk transfer results, and further trained subsequently on current claim data and risk transfer results, whether, for a first insurance claim, there is another party potentially responsible for the insurance claim, and, responsive to determining that there is another party potentially responsible for the first insurance claim, identifying the first insurance claim as being associated with a potential risk transfer recovery opportunity, and a likelihood of salvage recovery opportunities, wherein the historical claim data is scrubbed of erroneous values and subjected to data reduction to reduce variables associated with one another, categorizing of raw values to reduce granularity, and data transformations to improve interpretability, model fit or adherence to modeling assumptions prior to training the computerized predictive model; responsive to the determination, proceeding to one of (a) or (b): (a) for the identified first insurance claim, arranging for a potential risk transfer recovery user interface to be displayed to a claim handler, the potential risk transfer interface including fields for entry of data regarding at least a name of a potentially responsible party, a type of association with the claim of the potentially responsible party, and a liability percentage, receiving, via the potential recovery user interface, risk transfer recovery details from the claim handler, including a range of overall total damage values defined by high and low overall total damage values and a range of risk transfer values defined by high and low risk transfer values, automatically generate in the potential risk transfer user interface a pop-up window that displays a set of planned activities including a review of risk transfer activity relating to the identified first insurance claim having a due date, priority, and assigned claim handler, based on the received data, identifying a second insurance claim as being associated with a potential property salvage recovery opportunity, for the identified second insurance claim, arranging for a potential property salvage recovery user interface to be displayed to the claim handler, receiving, via the potential property salvage recovery user interface, property salvage recovery details from the claim handler, and transmitting indications the first and second insurance claims; (b) for a third insurance claim, determining that no other party is responsible, and identifying the third insurance claim for normal insurance claim processing, without automatically arranging for a potential risk transfer user interface to be displayed to a claim handler; and a property salvage recovery opportunity platform processor configured to automatically communicate potential salvage recovery opportunities identified by the computerized predictive model to salvage specialists and determine property salvage recovery amounts based on information received from salvage specialists via a graphical user interface.

“21. The system of claim 20, wherein the recovery opportunity platform processor is further configured for: automatically generating a risk transfer summary report associated with a plurality of insurance claims based in part on the high and low overall total damage values and the high and low risk transfer values received from the claim handler, and automatically generating a salvage summary report associated with a plurality of insurance claims based in part on the property salvage recovery details received from the claim handler, and transmitting indications of the risk transfer and salvage summary reports.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Bostic, Daniel Lee; Edwards, Paul J.; Reed, Andrew J; Scott, Michael Adam; Shemesh, Keren. System To Administer Risk Transfer And Property Salvage Recovery. U.S. Patent Number 10,650,460, filed June 22, 2015, and published online on May 25, 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=10,650,460.PN.&OS=PN/10,650,460RS=PN/10,650,460

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