“Life Insurance Policy Application Process And System” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20220051343): Patent Application

2022 MAR 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors Kakon, David Emmanuel (Westmount, CA); Kohn, Israel (Westmount, CA); Lipkowitz, Elizabeth Leah (Westmount, CA), filed on July 13, 2021, was made available online on February 17, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application has not been assigned to a company or institution.

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “While around for more than 200 years, the life insurance industry has grown in recent years. In fact, in 2018 alone, the life insurance industry was responsible for almost 1 trillion dollars in revenue in the United States. While this number may seem large, in 2019 only 57% of adults in the United States actively held life insurance policies (a number that was down from the previous year and has continued to drop), and most of those life insurance policies are for policy amounts less than needed. In large part, the low and declining percentage of Americans purchasing life insurance is due to the difficulties connecting life insurance agents and brokers with consumers, or procuring leads, as well as the complicated application process that eventually turns a lead into a sale. As a result of these wide-felt issues, consumers and professionals engaging with or operating in the life-insurance space face many uphill battles in the sale and procurement of life insurances policies. In many cases, consumers are burdened out of the gate with an overwhelming number of options to consider, ranging not only from which individual agent, broker, or company to choose, but also which term and amount to choose. If the consumer is able to discern which options are best for them, they are then subject to a daunting application process that takes them through various representatives, nurses, and other medical professionals, and that requires due diligence and affirmative actions on the consumer’s part-an overall lengthy and undesirable process. Agents and others operating as professionals in the space experience the opposite side of the same burdens. The burdens of obtaining leads and thereafter maintaining leads throughout the application process while making the process as smooth and easy for the potential customer are perhaps the largest and most widely felt burdens in the industry. In short, most Americans are not applying for insurance policies because the process of applying is lengthy and cumbersome.

“Obtaining leads and turning them into sales has consistently been one of the more difficult aspects of a life insurance agent or broker’s day-to-day operations. Presently, leads are generated in a variety of ways that require agents, brokers, and their companies substantial time and money with little to no guarantee of future profits. In some scenarios, these costs to individual agents are offset when they become part of a company that provides leads to them. However, even in situations where the individual agent has not lost time or money, the company has certainly expended money acquiring said leads and the agent continues to expend time converting the lead into a sale. Apart from obtaining leads from an employer, the most common ways of obtaining leads today can be broken down into three main categories-purchased leads, leads resulting from marketing and advertising, and direct contact leads. Each of these categories can cost considerable amounts of time and money to those looking to secure new leads, and often ignore or fail to engage consumers who are actively and readily looking for life insurance. These methods of obtaining leads also come with their own shortfalls apart from the amount of time and money spent with no guaranteed sale. The purchase of leads, for example, does not always guarantee an agent or broker exclusive access to the list they have purchased, requiring them to invest even more time in money and maintaining a competitive edge over other agents and brokers who may have purchased the same list. In addition to these shortfalls, agents and brokers must navigate through this portion of the process in manner that keeps the potential customer engaged and interested, a task that is difficult considered the complex nature of the application process. Further, any existing methods that expedite the process of obtaining a life insurance policy has an added cost to the customer to account for adverse selection.

“As mentioned above, the post-lead application process is hardly secondary to obtaining a lead in its burdensome nature. In most cases, potential customers must find an agent or broker before this portion even begins. Once started, the customer is often bombarded with calls and emails, requests for documentation, request for medical examination, and often required to meet a slew of other requirements that may vary from company to company. While customers come in hoping for a quick and easy process, the medical examination stage alone can delay the process by up to two weeks or more. For the agent, maintaining communication and seeing the sale through is equally as difficult and the scattered nature of the process, requiring consumers to cause the potential customer to act on the requests above, and do so honestly, in order to see the process through to policy issuance and final payment.

“As a result of the substantial shortcomings in the process for receiving leads, filing applications, and making the resulting sales, the need exists for a centralized and streamlined method of doing so. Specifically, the need exists for a centralized method and system for communicating leads to licensed agents and facilitating the life insurance application process that begins out of said leads.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “A method, system, and non-transitory computer-readable medium for facilitating insurance policy application processing over a communications network is disclosed. The system comprises processor configured for providing a user interface configured for accepting input data from a customer, accepting further data from the insurance agent, creating a first data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, and populating the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, generating one or more ancillary documents based on the first data structure and transmitting to the customer, over the communications network, the one or more ancillary documents for electronic signature by the customer, creating a second data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the second data structure based on the first data structure, and populating the second data structure by mapping data from the first data structure, and transmitting, via the communications network, the second data structure to a third party to initiate transmission of a health questionnaire to the customer. The system further includes a first memory for storing the first data structure and a second memory for storing the second data structure.

“Additional aspects of the claimed subject matter will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the claimed subject matter. The aspects of the claimed subject matter will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the disclosed subject matter, as claimed.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method implemented on a server for facilitating insurance policy application processing over a communications network, comprising the steps of: a) providing, over the communications network, a user interface configured for accepting input data from a customer from a particular state; b) accessing insurance agent records and identifying a set of insurance agents licensed in the particular state; c) broadcasting, over the communications network, a message to the set of insurance agents licensed in the particular state, the message indicating availability of the customer; d) receiving, over the communications network, an acceptance from a particular insurance agent licensed in the particular state; e) initiating a call, over the communications network, between the customer and the particular insurance agent; f) transmitting, over the communications network, a secure form to the particular insurance agent, wherein the form includes said input data and accepts further data entered into the form from the particular agent; g) creating a first data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, populating the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, and storing the first data structure in a first memory location; h) generating one or more ancillary documents based on the first data structure and transmitting to the customer, over the communications network, the one or more ancillary documents for electronic signature by the customer; i) creating a second data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the second data structure based on the first data structure, populating the second data structure by mapping data from the first data structure, and storing the second data structure in a second memory location; and j) transmitting, via the communications network, the second data structure to a third party to initiate transmission of a health questionnaire to the customer.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing, over the communications network, a user interface further comprises providing a graphical user interface on a web site.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of broadcasting, over the communications network, a message further comprises broadcasting, over the communications network, a message to mobile computing devices of the set of insurance agents.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of receiving, over the communications network, an acceptance further comprises receiving, over the communications network, a message from a mobile device of a particular insurance agent licensed in the particular state.

“5. The method of claim 4, wherein the step of initiating a call, over the communications network, between the customer and the particular insurance agent further comprises initiating a call, over the public switched telephone network between the customer and the particular insurance agent.

“6. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of generating one or more ancillary documents further comprises generating at least a legal agreement for the customer to sign with an electronic signature.

“7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of: transmitting, over the communications network, one or more ancillary documents to the customer for electronic signature.

“8. The method of claim 9, further comprising the step of: responsive to receiving an electronic signature by the customer on the one or more ancillary documents, transmitting a payment request to the customer.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of storing the first data structure in a first memory location further comprises encrypting the first data structure before it is stored in the first memory location, and wherein the step of storing the second data structure in a second memory location further comprises encrypting the second data structure before it is stored in the second memory location.

“10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium with instructions stored thereon, that when executed by a processor, perform the steps comprising: a) providing, over a communications network, a user interface configured for accepting input data from a customer; b) transmitting, over the communications network, a secure form to an insurance agent, wherein the form includes said input data and accepts further data entered into the form from the insurance agent; c) creating a first data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, populating the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, and storing the first data structure in a first memory location; d) generating one or more ancillary documents based on the first data structure and transmitting to the customer, over the communications network, the one or more ancillary documents for electronic signature by the customer; e) creating a second data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the second data structure based on the first data structure, populating the second data structure by mapping data from the first data structure, and storing the second data structure in a second memory location; and f) transmitting, via the communications network, the second data structure to a third party to initiate transmission of a health questionnaire to the customer.

“11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the step of providing, over the communications network, a user interface further comprises providing a graphical user interface on a web site.

“12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the step of generating one or more ancillary documents further comprises generating at least a legal agreement for the customer to sign with an electronic signature.

“13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, further comprising the step of: transmitting, over the communications network, one or more ancillary documents to the customer for electronic signature.

“14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 13, further comprising the step of: responsive to receiving an electronic signature by the customer on the one or more ancillary documents, transmitting a payment request to the customer.

“15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the step of storing the first data structure in a first memory location further comprises encrypting the first data structure before it is stored in the first memory location, and wherein the step of storing the second data structure in a second memory location further comprises encrypting the second data structure before it is stored in the second memory location.

“16. A system for facilitating insurance policy application processing over a communications network, comprising: a processor configured for: a) providing, over a communications network, a user interface configured for accepting input data from a customer; b) transmitting, over the communications network, a secure form to an insurance agent, wherein the form includes said input data and accepts further data entered into the form from the insurance agent; c) creating a first data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the first data structure based on the input data and the further data, and populating the first data structure based on the input data and the further data; d) generating one or more ancillary documents based on the first data structure and transmitting to the customer, over the communications network, the one or more ancillary documents for electronic signature by the customer; e) creating a second data structure composed of strings, attributes of strings, dependencies between strings, and hierarchies between strings, encoding changes to the second data structure based on the first data structure, and populating the second data structure by mapping data from the first data structure; and f) transmitting, via the communications network, the second data structure to a third party to initiate transmission of a health questionnaire to the customer; a first memory for storing the first data structure; and a second memory for storing the second data structure.

“17. The system of claim 16, wherein the step of providing, over the communications network, a user interface further comprises providing a graphical user interface on a web site.

“18. The system of claim 17, wherein the step of generating one or more ancillary documents further comprises generating at least a legal agreement for the customer to sign with an electronic signature.

“19. The system of claim 18, the processor further configured for: transmitting, over the communications network, one or more ancillary documents to the customer for electronic signature.

“20. The system of claim 19, wherein the processor encrypts the first data structure before it is stored in the first memory location, and wherein processor encrypts the second data structure before it is stored in the second memory location.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: Kakon, David Emmanuel; Kohn, Israel; Lipkowitz, Elizabeth Leah. Life Insurance Policy Application Process And System. Filed July 13, 2021 and posted February 17, 2022. Patent URL: https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220220051343%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20220051343&RS=DN/20220051343

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