System and method for computerized insurance rating

• US 7,783,505 B2
• Filed: 11/12/2008
• Issued: 08/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hartford Fire Insurance Company (The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hartford Fire Insurance Company (The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.)
• Inventors: Fiorilli, Leonard G., Roschelle, Perry M., Tran, Oai T., McKernan, Michael Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Kazimi; Hani
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tinkler; Muriel
• Application Number:
  US12/291,649
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150191A1
• Time in Patent Office: 650 Days
• Field of Search: 705/4, 705/35, 705/38, 283/54, 715/212, 715/215, 715/217, 715/219, 715/220
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

The invention relates generally to a computer system and method for integrating insurance policy underwriting. In one aspect, it integrates an older legacy insurance policy generating system to on-line rating systems where users access the system through browsers. The computer system to perform the process of dynamically rating includes generating an input XML file of risk information that is sent to a web service and calculated in a calculation engine. The processed data is retrieved by the web service and transmitted as an XML file to a user interface that parses the rating information and displays the data.

Claims

1. An adaptive system for rating possible insurance risk comprising:

a user interface in electronic communication with a user computer for receiving risk information, said user interface in communication with a legacy computer system;

a web service in electronic communication with said legacy computer system for receiving said risk information, wherein said web service also being provided for transmitting risk rating information to said legacy computer system;

a calculation engine in electronic communication with said web service and configured to;

load, from a data repository for storing rating spreadsheets for calculation of risk rating data, instances of selected ones of workbooks of the stored spreadsheets;

populate cells of said workbooks with data based on said received risk information;

perform calculations employing formulas included in said workbooks to determine risk rating information;

furnish results of the calculations from the cells of the workbooks to the web service; and

close the instances of the workbooks without saving entered values;

and said legacy system parsing said risk rating information for display on said user interface,

wherein the rating spreadsheets are further for calculating premium data;

the calculation engine is further configured to perform calculations employing formulas included in said workbooks to determine premiums; and

said legacy system is further for parsing said premiums for display on said user interface, and

wherein the workbooks are loaded responsive to identifying a cell name in a workbook corresponding to a field name in an XML document generated by the legacy system for furnishing the risk information to the web service, and the data from the XML document is mapped to cells in the workbooks having corresponding names.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the legacy computer system transmits said risk information as an input XML file.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein said web service provides said risk rating information to said legacy computer system as an output XML file.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the data repository is configured to store calculations for one or more of the rating spreadsheets.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said data repository is further configured to store data for said rating spreadsheets.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said rating spreadsheets are provided to said calculation engine via a communications bus.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein said legacy system has a plurality of rules for converting said rating information into said input XML file.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said web service dynamically maps data in said input XML file into said cells of said workbooks.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an upload interface for saving said rating spreadsheets into said data repository.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the risk information comprises limits, retentions and risk modification factors.

10. A computer implemented method for rating possible insurance risk, comprising the steps of:

receiving, via a user interface in electronic communication with a user computer, insurance risk information, wherein the user interface is in communication with a legacy computer system;

receiving, via a web service in electronic communication with the legacy computer system, the insurance risk information;

loading, from a data repository for storing rating spreadsheets for calculation of risk rating data, by a calculation engine in electronic communication with the web service, instances of selected ones of workbooks of the rating spreadsheets;

populating cells of said workbooks with data based on said received insurance risk information;

calculating, via the calculation engine employing formulas included in said workbooks, risk rating information, furnishing the risk rating information resulting from the calculating, from the cells of the workbooks to the web service, and closing the instances of the workbooks without saving entered values;

transmitting, via the web service, the furnished risk rating information to the legacy computer system;

parsing, via the legacy computer system, the transmitted risk rating information; and

displaying, via the user interface, the risk rating information to the user

wherein the rating spreadsheets are further for calculating premium data;

the calculation engine is further configured to perform calculations employing formulas included in said workbooks to determine premiums; and

said legacy system is further for parsing said premiums for display on said user interface, and

wherein the workbooks are loaded responsive to identifying a cell name in a workbook corresponding to a field name in an XML document generated by the legacy system for furnishing the risk information to the web service, and the data from the XML document is mapped to cells in the workbooks having corresponding names.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the legacy system provides the insurance risk information to the web service as an input XML document.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 11, wherein the web service provides the risk rating information to the legacy computer system as an output XML document.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 12, further comprising the step of storing, via the data repository, calculations for the rating spreadsheets.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 13, further comprising the step of storing, via the data repository, data for the rating spreadsheets.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 14, wherein the rating spreadsheets are provided to the calculation engine via a communications bus.

16. The computer implemented method of claim 15, wherein the legacy system has a plurality of rules for converting the insurance risk information into the input XML file.

17. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein the web service maps data in the input XML file into the rating spreadsheet.

18. The computer implemented method of claim 17, further comprising the step of storing, via an upload interface, the rating spreadsheets into the data repository.

19. A system for rating possible insurance risk comprising:

a user interface in electronic communication with a user computer for receiving risk information, said user interface in communication with a legacy computer system;

a web service in electronic communication with said legacy computer system for receiving said risk information, wherein said web service also being provided for transmitting risk rating information to said legacy computer system;

a calculation engine in electronic communication with said web service for calculating said risk rating information;

a data repository in communication with said calculation engine for storing calculations for rating spreadsheets, wherein instances of selected ones of workbooks of the rating spreadsheets are loaded from the data repository by the calculation engine, cells of the workbooks are populated with data based on said received risk information, calculations in accordance with formulas included in said workbooks are performed to determine risk rating information, results of the calculations from the cells of the workbooks are furnished to the web service, and the instances of the workbooks are closed without saving entered values, and wherein said calculation engine transmits said risk rating information to said web service, and said legacy system parses said risk rating information for display on said user interface

wherein the rating spreadsheets are further for calculating premium data;

the calculation engine is further configured to perform calculations employing formulas included in said workbooks to determine premiums; and

said legacy system is further for parsing said premiums for display on said user interface, and

wherein the workbooks are loaded responsive to identifying a cell name in a workbook corresponding to a field name in an XML document generated by the legacy system for furnishing the risk information to the web service, and the data from the XML document is mapped to cells in the workbooks having corresponding names.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the workbooks are loaded responsive to identifying a cell name in a workbook corresponding to a field name in a document generated by the legacy system for furnishing the risk information to the web service.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the document is in XML format, and the data from one or more fields in the XML format document is mapped to one or more cells in the workbook having the corresponding name.