Method and apparatus for performing assessments

• US 8,032,400 B2
• Filed: 06/05/2008
• Issued: 10/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Guaranty Fund Management Services
• Original Assignee: Guaranty Fund Management Services
• Inventors: Anderson, Karen, Angelone, Linda, Winskowicz, James, Amigo, Denise, Gulko, Paul, Lavin, Kathleen
• Primary Examiner(s): Frenel; Vanel
• Application Number:
  US12/134,059
• Publication Number:
  US 20080235064A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,216 Days
• Field of Search: 705/4, 705/36.R, 705/30, 705/35
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services
• CPC Class Codes: H01L 21/28035 the final conductor layer next to the insulator being silicon, e.g. polysilicon, with or without impurities H01L21/28105 takes precedence

Abstract

Described are techniques used in connection with providing insolvency services in connection with guaranty funds, such as property and casualty guaranty funds, upon the occurrence of an insurance company insolvency. A client/server system provides for creating and maintaining a database of state and insurance company member information. Operations, such as calculations, are performed in accordance with different rules that are associated with varying state laws and rules that may vary with insurance account. A range of functions are performed by the system comprising report generation, unearned premium calculations, assessment calculation, claim entry and management, administrative tasks, and other related operations. The system which provides services and operations in connection with managing insolvency funds may interact with other applications and systems, such as an accounting system, word processing system, and the like by generating data used as input in these other systems. Also described is a database schema representing a relationship between the different data entities that may be stored in a database in connection with performing insolvency operations.

Claims

1. A system for managing insurance insolvency operations, the system comprising:

a fund management system used in management operations of at least one state fund, each state having a unique state fund comprising monies used in connection with insurance insolvency operations of the each state, the management operations comprising management of a data organization of the at least one state fund;

a database comprising the data organization of insolvency funds comprising the at least one state fund, the data organization comprising a state fund for each state associated with the insurance insolvency operations, an insurance account of a first type being associated with the state fund, and at least one line of insurance being associated with the insurance account; and

an assessment system that obtains assessment data associated with the at least one state fund in connection with at least one solvent member, the insurance account, and an insolvency, the assessment data having one of a plurality of associated statuses comprising a first and second status, the first status indicating the assessment data is not integrated to a member level in the data organization, the member level indicating a prorated amount for which the solvent member contributes to the state fund, the second status indicating the assessment data is integrated to the member level.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the assessment system determines a member ratio in accordance with an amount of business of the member per insurance account in a state, determines a member assessment for the solvent member in accordance with the member ratio using the assessment data, the member assessment being included in the prorated amount, and perform an allocation operation updating the first status to the second status.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the assessment system adjusts, subsequent to approving the assessment data, the member premium data comprising adjusting the member ratio by recalculating only a numerator portion of the member ratio and automatically updates references to the member premium data in response to the adjusting.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the fund management system borrows an amount from at least one insurance account to pay for an assessment amount in connection with another insufficiently funded insurance account to cover insolvency payments of an insolvent member.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the assessment system performs a post assessment adjustment using updated member data in determining an updated member assessment, wherein the updated member assessment overrides the member assessment previously determined.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the assessment system automatically determines a state override assessment amount overriding the member assessment and the updated member assessment, the state override amount being determined using predetermined amounts specified in accordance with each particular state.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising an approval system that performs an approval operation causing updating of the first status to the second status and produces at least one output in response to the approval operation which is used by an external system.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the at least one output entry is data used in connection with a general ledger entry in an external system that is an accounting system.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the database organization comprises historical activity regarding assessment payments made by at least one member, and wherein the assessment system uses the historical activity regarding payments to issue refunds using a last-in-first-out technique.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an unearned premium system that performs data operations in connection with unearned insurance premium data in the database;

a reporting system that performs reporting operations using information from the database;

a claims processing system that performs operations using the database in connection with claims of an insurance policy written by an insolvent member; and

administrative and maintenance system that performs general administrative and maintenance operations in connection with the database.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the administrative and maintenance system further comprising:

a security system performs functions in connection with restricting operations of a user in accordance with a particular assigned role of the user;

a member and state management system performs functions related to management of portions of the database of member and state information, the functions comprising initialization and creation of records in the database for each member insurance company, the member and the state information being used by at least one of;

the claims processing system and the unearned premium system; and

an interface system providing functionality for interfacing with another software system.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein at least one of the claims processing, the unearned premium system, and the administrative and maintenance system create a diary entry comprising information about at least one of:

a claims and an unearned premium and send the diary entry to at least one user in response to an occurrence of a predefined event.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the predefined event comprises at least one of:

deleting a pending payment, closing one of a claim and an unearned premium, upon rejection of a closing of one of a claim and unearned premium, modifying a line of insurance, deleting a line of insurance, sending a note to a reviewer, adjusting a reserve, adding a new taxpayer, and modifying an existing taxpayer.

14. The system of claim 1, further comprising a transaction processing system that performs a transaction in connection with one of an insurance claim and an unearned premium, determines a corresponding insurance account in the database in accordance with information about one of the insurance claim and the unearned premium, the information comprising a relationship to a state and at least one line of insurance associated with the corresponding insurance account, and adjusts an amount associated with the corresponding insurance account in accordance with the transaction.

15. A method for managing insurance insolvency operations, the method comprising:

performing management operations of at least one state fund, each state having a unique state fund comprising monies used in connection with insurance insolvency operations of the each state, the management operations comprising management of a data organization of the at least one state fund;

utilizing a database comprising the data organization of insolvency funds comprising the at least one state fund, the data organization comprising a state fund for each state associated with the insurance insolvency operations, an insurance account of a first type being associated with the state fund, and at least one line of insurance being associated with the insurance account;

obtaining assessment data associated with the at least one state fund in connection with at least one solvent member, the insurance account, and an insolvency, the assessment data having one of a plurality of associated statuses comprising a first and second status, the first status indicating the assessment data is not integrated to a member level in the data organization, the member level indicating a prorated amount for which the solvent member contributes to the state fund, the second status indicating the assessment data is integrated to the member level.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining a member ratio in accordance with an amount of business of the member per insurance account in a state;

determining a member assessment for the solvent member in accordance with the member ratio using the assessment data, the member assessment being included in the prorated amount; and

performing an allocation operation updating the first status to the second status.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

performing an approval operation causing updating of the first status to the second status; and

producing at least one output entry in response to the approval operation, the at least one output entry used by an external system.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the at least one output entry is data used in connection with a general ledger entry in an external system that is an accounting system.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

adjusting, subsequent to approving the assessment data, the member premium data comprising adjusting the member ratio by recalculating only a numerator portion of the member ratio; and

automatically updating references to the member premium data in response to the adjusting.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising borrowing an amount from at least one insurance account to pay for an assessment amount in connection with another insufficiently funded insurance account to cover insolvency payments of an insolvent member.

21. The method of claim 15, further comprising performing a post assessment adjustment using updated member data in determining an updated member assessment, wherein the updated member assessment overrides the member assessment previously determined.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising automatically determining a state override assessment amount overriding the member assessment and the updated member assessment, the state override amount being determined using predetermined amounts specified in accordance with each particular state.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the database organization comprises historical activity regarding assessment payments made by at least one member, and further comprises using the historical activity regarding payments to issue refunds using a last-in-first-out technique.

24. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

performing data operations in connection with unearned insurance premium data in the database;

performing reporting operations using information from the database;

performing claims processing operations using the database in connection with claims of an insurance policy written by an insolvent member; and

performing general administrative and maintenance operations in connection with the database.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

performing security operations in connection with restricting operations of a user in accordance with a particular assigned role of the user;

performing management of portions of the database of member and state information, the functions comprising initialization and creation of records in the database for each member insurance company; and

providing functionality for interfacing with another software system.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

creating a diary entry comprising information about at least one of;

a claims and an unearned premium; and

sending the diary entry to at least one user in response to an occurrence of a predefined event.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the predefined event is one of:

deleting a pending payment, closing one of a claim and an unearned premium, upon rejection of a closing of one of a claim and unearned premium, modifying a line of insurance, deleting a line of insurance, sending a note to a reviewer, adjusting a reserve, adding a new taxpayer, and modifying an existing taxpayer.

28. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

performing a transaction in connection with one of an insurance claim and an unearned premium;

determining a corresponding insurance account in the database in accordance with information about one of the insurance claim and the unearned premium, the information comprising a relationship to a state and at least one line of insurance associated with the corresponding insurance account; and

adjusting an amount associated with the corresponding insurance account in accordance with the transaction.

29. A computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for managing insurance insolvency operations comprising machine executable code which when executed by at least one processor, causes the processor to perform steps comprising:

performing management operations of at least one state fund, each state having a unique state fund comprising monies used in connection with insurance insolvency operations of the each state, the management operations comprising management of a data organization of the at least one state fund;

utilizing a database comprising the data organization of insolvency funds comprising the at least one state fund, the data organization comprising a state fund for each state associated with the insurance insolvency operations, an insurance account of a first type being associated with the state fund, and at least one line of insurance being associated with the insurance account;

obtaining assessment data associated with the at least one state fund in connection with at least one solvent member, the insurance account, and an insolvency, the assessment data having one of a plurality of associated statuses comprising a first and second status, the first status indicating the assessment data is not integrated to a member level in the data organization, the member level indicating a prorated amount for which the solvent member contributes to the state fund, the second status indicating the assessment data is integrated to the member level.

30. The medium of claim 29, further comprising:

determining a member ratio in accordance with an amount of business of the member per insurance account in a state;

determining a member assessment for the solvent member in accordance with the member ratio using the assessment data, the member assessment being included in the prorated amount; and

performing an allocation operation updating the first status to the second status.

31. The medium of claim 30, further comprising:

performing an approval operation causing updating of the first status to the second status; and

producing at least one output entry in response to the approval operation, the at least one output entry used by an external system.

32. The medium of claim 31, wherein the at least one output entry is data used in connection with a general ledger entry in an external system that is an accounting system.

33. The medium of claim 30, further comprising:

adjusting, subsequent to approving the assessment data, the member premium data comprising adjusting the member ratio by recalculating only a numerator portion of the member ratio; and

automatically updating references to the member premium data in response to the adjusting.

34. The medium of claim 33, further comprising borrowing an amount from at least one insurance account to pay for an assessment amount in connection with another insufficiently funded insurance account to cover insolvency payments of an insolvent member.

35. The medium of claim 29, further comprising performing a post assessment adjustment using updated member data in determining an updated member assessment, wherein the updated member assessment overrides the member assessment previously determined.

36. The medium of claim 35, further comprising automatically determining a state override assessment amount overriding the member assessment and the updated member assessment, the state override amount being determined using predetermined amounts specified in accordance with each particular state.

37. The medium of claim 29, wherein the database organization comprises historical activity regarding assessment payments made by at least one member, and further comprises using the historical activity regarding payments to issue refunds using a last-in-first-out technique.

38. The medium of claim 29, further comprising:

performing data operations in connection with unearned insurance premium data in the database;

performing reporting operations using information from the database;

performing claims processing operations using the database in connection with claims of an insurance policy written by an insolvent member; and

performing general administrative and maintenance operations in connection with the database.

39. The medium of claim 38, further comprising:

performing security operations in connection with restricting operations of a user in accordance with a particular assigned role of the user;

performing management of portions of the database of member and state information, the functions comprising initialization and creation of records in the database for each member insurance company; and

providing functionality for interfacing with another software system.

40. The medium of claim 39, further comprising:

creating a diary entry comprising information about at least one of;

a claims and an unearned premium; and

sending the diary entry to at least one user in response to an occurrence of a predefined event.

41. The medium of claim 40, wherein the predefined event comprises at least one of:

deleting a pending payment, closing one of a claim and an unearned premium, upon rejection of a closing of one of a claim and unearned premium, modifying a line of insurance, deleting a line of insurance, sending a note to a reviewer, adjusting a reserve, adding a new taxpayer, and modifying an existing taxpayer.

42. The medium of claim 29, further comprising:

performing a transaction in connection with one of an insurance claim and an unearned premium;

determining a corresponding insurance account in the database in accordance with information about one of the insurance claim and the unearned premium, the information comprising a relationship to a state and at least one line of insurance associated with the corresponding insurance account; and

adjusting an amount associated with the corresponding insurance account in accordance with the transaction.