Pre-calculated insurance premiums with wildcarding

• US 10,109,014 B1
• Filed: 07/30/2015
• Issued: 10/23/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Allstate Insurance Company (Allstate Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Allstate Insurance Company (Allstate Corporation)
• Inventors: Bischoff, Richard D., Reed, Nicholas J., Lenahan, Timothy S., Huls, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): King, Joseph W.
• Application Number:
  US14/813,741
• Time in Patent Office: 1,181 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/90335 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/08 Registering or indicating performance data other than driving, working, idle, or waiting time, with or without registering driving, working, idle or waiting time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/22 Traffic shaping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

Systems and methods involving a rating module that accesses a single, voluminous table or multiple tables stored in a searchable data store (e.g., database) to execute various queries (e.g., SQL JOIN) to search the table(s) is disclosed. The system may include—an underlying linear programming platform (e.g., optimization engine and associated components) that includes an application programmer'"'"'s interface (e.g., Python API) that may be used to perform optimization using illustrative optimization libraries (e.g., optimizer). The system may be communicatively coupled with a vehicle and/or other device to communicate/output ratings information to a user.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a vehicle telematics unit disposed inside a vehicle operated by a user, the vehicle telematics unit communicatively tethered to the vehicle and configured to measure one or more vehicle operational factors;

a user device comprising a display screen visible to the user;

an online vehicle insurance rating server comprising a computer processor and a computer memory storing computer-executable instructions;

a data storage unit communicatively coupled to the online vehicle insurance rating server, the data storage unit storing all ratings data in a single table comprising a plurality of embedded tables, wherein the single table comprises one or more wildcard values representing one or more factors that automatically match any value; and

a network communicatively coupling the online vehicle insurance rating server and the user device;

wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the computer processor of the online vehicle insurance rating server, cause the online vehicle insurance rating server to;

store, in the computer memory by the computer processor, a data structure comprising combinations of a first plurality of personal insurance factors and a first plurality of vehicle operational factors, and a pre-calculated insurance premium amount associated with each combination, wherein the data structure comprises the one or more wildcard values in multiple fields of the data structure;

receive, by the computer processor using an input module, a second plurality of personal insurance factors associated with the user of the vehicle and a second plurality of vehicle operational factors of the vehicle of the user measured by the vehicle telematics unit, wherein the second plurality of personal insurance factors comprise at least a first personal insurance factor and a second personal insurance factor;

identify, by the computer processor using a search module, a plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts in the data structure directly corresponding to the second plurality of personal insurance factors and the second plurality of vehicle operational factors;

aggregate, by the search module, the identified plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts to determine an aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amount;

determine, by the computer processor, based directly on the aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amounts and without performing additional calculations, an insurance premium amount quote; and

output, by the computer processor, over the network to the display screen on the user device, the insurance premium amount quote.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the vehicle telematics unit disposed inside the vehicle is configured to transmit the second plurality of vehicle operational factors of the vehicle to the online vehicle insurance rating server.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the second plurality of personal insurance factors and the second plurality of vehicle operational factors are formatted into a database search query format, wherein the database search query format is unaffected by a presence of the one or more wildcard values in the data structure.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the database search query format is SQL.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the insurance premium amount quote is further based on a base insurance premium amount, wherein the base insurance premium amount is received at the computer processor from a real-time calculation tool, which is communicatively coupled with the computer processor.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the single table storing all ratings data is configured to be dynamically updated, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the computer processor of the online vehicle insurance rating server, further cause the online vehicle insurance rating server to:

add a new row to the single table that corresponds to a new insurance rating rule; and

remove an existing row from the single table that corresponds to an existing insurance rating rule.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the adding the new row and the removing the existing row result in a real-time update to subsequent outputs of the insurance premium amount quote.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the online vehicle insurance rating server further comprises:

a linear programming platform including an application programmer'"'"'s interface configured to perform optimization using one or more optimization libraries;

wherein the linear programming platform comprises an optimization engine and associated components.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a remote application server, which is communicatively coupled with the computer processor, configured to generate a base insurance premium amount and transmit the generated base insurance premium amount to the computer processor.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the input module is further configured to round the first personal insurance factor to an integer value before sending to the search module, wherein the first personal insurance factor is one of age, gender, and non-smoker.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the computer processor of the online vehicle insurance rating server, further cause the online vehicle insurance rating server to:

round, by the computer processor using the input module, the first personal insurance factor from a decimal value to an integer value.

12. A method of calculating an insurance premium amount using an online vehicle insurance rating server, comprising:

storing, in a computer memory by a computer processor of the online vehicle insurance rating server, a data structure comprising combinations of a first plurality of personal insurance factors and a first plurality of vehicle operational factors, and a pre-calculated insurance premium amount associated with each combination, wherein the data structure comprises one or more wildcard values in multiple fields of the data structure, wherein the one or more wildcard values represent one or more factors that automatically match any value;

receiving, by the computer processor using an input module, a second plurality of personal insurance factors associated with a user of a vehicle, wherein the second plurality of personal insurance factors comprise at least a first personal insurance factor and a second personal insurance factor;

receiving, by the computer processor and from a vehicle telematics unit disposed inside the vehicle associated with the user, a second plurality of vehicle operational factors of the vehicle of the user measured by the vehicle telematics unit, the vehicle telematics unit communicatively tethered to the vehicle and configured to measure one or more vehicle operational factors;

identifying, by the computer processor using a search module, a plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts in the data structure directly corresponding to the second plurality of personal insurance factors and the second plurality of vehicle operational factors received from the input module;

aggregating, by the search module, the identified plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts to determine an aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amount;

calculating, by the computer processor, based directly on the aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amounts and without performing additional calculations, an insurance premium amount quote; and

outputting, by the computer processor, over a network to a display screen on an electronic device, the insurance premium amount quote.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the second plurality of personal insurance factors and the second plurality of vehicle operational factors are formatted into a database search query format, wherein the database search query format is unaffected by a presence of the one or more wildcard values in the data structure, wherein the database search query format is SQL.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein a single table stores all ratings data and is configured to be dynamically updated, the method further comprising:

add a new row to the single table that corresponds to a new insurance rating rule; and

remove an existing row from the single table that corresponds to an existing insurance rating rule,

wherein the adding the new row and the removing the existing row result in a real-time update to subsequent outputs of the insurance premium amount quote.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the input module is further configured to round the first personal insurance factor to an integer value before sending to the search module, wherein the first personal insurance factor is one of age, gender, and non-smoker.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computer processor, cause a system to:

store, in a computer memory by the computer processor, a data structure comprising combinations of a first plurality of personal insurance factors and a first plurality of vehicle operational factors, and a pre-calculated insurance premium amount associated with each combination, wherein the data structure comprises one or more wildcard values in the data structure, and wherein the one or more wildcard values represent one or more factors that automatically match any value;

receive, by the computer processor using an input module, a second plurality of personal insurance factors associated with a user of a vehicle, wherein the second plurality of personal insurance factors comprise at least a first personal insurance factor and a second personal insurance factor;

receive, by the computer processor and from a vehicle telematics unit disposed inside the vehicle associated with the user, a second plurality of vehicle operational factors of the vehicle of the user measured by the vehicle telematics unit, the vehicle telematics unit communicatively tethered to the vehicle and configured to measure one or more vehicle operational factors;

identify, by the computer processor using a search module, a plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts in the data structure directly corresponding to the second plurality of personal insurance factors and the second plurality of vehicle operational factors received from the input module;

aggregate, by the search module, the plurality of pre-calculated insurance premium amounts to determine an aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amount;

determine, by the computer processor, based directly on the aggregated pre-calculated insurance premium amounts and without performing additional calculations, an insurance premium amount quote; and

output, by the computer processor, over a network to a display screen on a user device, the insurance premium amount quote.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer processor is communicatively coupled to a remote application server configured to generate a base insurance premium amount and transmit the generated base insurance premium amount to the computer processor.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, further cause the system to:

add a new row to the data structure that corresponds to a new insurance rating rule; and

remove an existing row from the data structure that corresponds to an existing insurance rating rule,

wherein the adding the new row and the removing the existing row result in a real-time update to subsequent outputs of the insurance premium amount quote.