Reusable product system

• US 8,788,295 B1
• Filed: 09/29/2009
• Issued: 07/22/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Wargin, Jeffrey M., McGiffin, Gail E., LeCam, Timothy E.
• Primary Examiner(s): TINKLER, MURIEL S
• Application Number:
  US12/569,621
• Time in Patent Office: 1,757 Days
• Field of Search: 705/4, 715/764, 715/765
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

A system is configured to allow a business user to define insurance products based upon reusable product/offering definitions. The reusable product/offerings definitions may include reusable insurance based components and templates, which permit a business user of the software to develop and configure insurance products based upon a hierarchical set of insurance product components and insurance product templates. In addition, the system combines componentization, flexible granularity and reusable product structures to permit a user to more rapidly and predictably generate insurance product configurations and flexibly tailor the insurance products or offerings to meet a specific client or market need.

Claims

1. A system for defining an insurance product offering based upon reusable components comprising:

a server configured to communicate via a network, the server further configured to interface with an insurance component library database and an insurance product database, wherein the insurance component library database is configured to store a plurality of insurance components, and the insurance product database is configured to store at least one insurance product, and wherein the server is further configured to communicate over the network with at least one engine server comprising a plurality of configurable engines configured to pass instructions and data between the server and an engine database;

the server configured to communicate with a user portal via the network, the user portal configured to generate an insurance product development interface to display at least a portion of the insurance component library;

the server further configured to receive via the user portal a first selection of a first insurance component and a second selection of a second insurance component from the plurality of insurance components displayed on the user portal;

the server further configured to receive via the user portal an assignment of a component relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component;

the server further configured to receive via the user portal a first selection of a first rule type for the first insurance component, wherein the first rule type and the component relationship are mapped to a first configurable content resident on one of the plurality of configurable engines of the at least one engine server, the one of the configurable engines identified by the server based on an association of the one of the configurable engines and the selected first and second components, the configurable content being configured in the identified one of the configurable engines in response to the rule type and the component relationship for access and control by the server to support the insurance product offering; and

the server further configured to store an insurance product in the insurance product database as a function of the first insurance component, the second insurance component, the assignment of the component relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component, and the first rule type for the first insurance component.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

the server further configured to receive the selection of the first insurance component via the user portal;

in response to selection of the first insurance component, the server further configured to request information associated with the first insurance component;

the server further configured to direct the user portal to display an attribute associated with the first insurance component; and

the server further configured to assign a value to the attribute associated with the first insurance component.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

the server further configured to receive via the user portal a selection of the first insurance component;

in response to receipt of the selection of the first insurance component, the server further configured to direct the user portal to display the component relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component;

the server further configured to receive via the user portal a modification request to change the component relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component;

in response to the modification request, the server configured to determine whether the modification request is allowable; and

in response to the server determination that the modification request is allowable, the server further configured to transmit an indication to the user portal that the component relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component is changed.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one of the plurality of configurable engines is a first one of the configurable engines, and the server is further configured to receive via the user portal a second selection of a second rule type for the second insurance component, wherein the second rule type is associated with a second configurable content resident on a second one of the plurality of configurable engines;

and

the server is further configured to store the insurance product in the insurance product database as a new version of the insurance product as a function of the first insurance component, the second insurance component, the assignment of the component relationship between the first insurance component, and the second rule type for the second insurance component.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising:

the server further configured to receive a selection via the user portal of the first insurance component;

in response to selection of the first insurance component, the server is further configured to request information associated with the first insurance component via the user portal;

in response to receipt of the information associated with the first insurance component, the server is further configured to direct the user portal to display the first rule type associated with the first insurance component based upon the requested information associated with the first insurance component;

the server further configured to receive a new selection of the first rule type for the first insurance component via the user portal; and

in response to the new selection of the first rule type for the first insurance component, the first rule type is associated with a third configurable content resident on the first one of the plurality of configurable engines.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the insurance component library database includes a plurality of insurance product templates, wherein each of the insurance product templates include a plurality of hierarchically associated insurance components.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first insurance component includes an insurance product template, wherein the insurance product template includes a plurality of hierarchically associated insurance components.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to receipt of a request from the user portal to store the insurance product, the server is configured to validate coherency of the first insurance component and the second insurance component;

and

based upon validation of the coherency of the first insurance component and the second insurance component, the server is further configured to store the insurance product in the insurance product database.

9. A method for generating an insurance product comprising:

accessing, with a processor, an insurance component database comprising a plurality of insurance components configured to represent portions of an insurance product;

retrieving from the insurance component database with the processor a first insurance component;

displaying the first insurance component on a graphical interface;

creating and storing, with the processor, at least one hierarchical relationship between the first insurance component and a second insurance component;

the processor storing at least one rule type in association with the first insurance component and the second insurance component based on the hierarchical relationship;

identifying, with the processor one of a plurality of configurable engines implemented on at least one engine server, the one of plurality of configurable engines identified based on the hierarchical relationship and the at least one rule type associated with the first insurance component;

the processor associating the first insurance component with configurable content resident on the identified one of a plurality of configurable engines; and

associating, with the processor, the configurable content in the identified one of the configurable engines with the first insurance component based on the rule type and the hierarchical relationship, the configured configurable content comprising a communication link formed between the at least engine server implementing the identified one of the configurable engines and the first insurance component as part of the association; and

accessing the at least one engine server and controlling the identified one of plurality of configurable engines with the processor using the communication link to support the insurance product offering.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the insurance components includes a component type relationships table, a component type attribute table, and a component type rule types table, the hierarchical relationship stored in the component type relationships table, and the at least one rule type stored in the component type rule types table.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein associating, with the processor, the configurable content in the identified one of the configurable engines comprises:

storing the rule type, wherein the rule type references an addressable network location of the at least one engine server that is associated with the configurable content of the identified one of the configurable engines implement on the at least one engine server.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising assigning, with the processor, at least one attribute entry to the first insurance component.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein assigning, with the processor, the at least one attribute entry to the first insurance component comprises:

storing, with the processor, the at least one attribute entry for the first insurance component, wherein the at least one attribute entry defines an aspect of the insurance product.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein creating, with the processor, the at least one hierarchical relationship between the first insurance component and the second insurance component comprises:

the processor storing in a first component type relationships table of the first insurance component an association to the second insurance component;

the processor storing in a second component type relationships table of the second insurance component an association to the second insurance component; and

wherein the hierarchical relationship describes a structural relationship of the insurance product.