Patent Application
20140324481
While most policy holders apply for benefits upon accrued events associated with the insurance policy, such as death or disability, a surprising number of policies remain unclaimed. There has been a long history of insurance companies taking steps to locate insurance policyholders and to insure proper payment of benefits. In the late 1980s, for example, MetLife began its original “Family Reunion” program—a ten-year, multi-media campaign to locate “lost” policyholders and to reunite them with their MetLife insurance benefits. This campaign led to reconnections with more than 500,000 policyholders.
Currently there are no automated search capabilities for consumers looking to confirm coverage. Calls are received into the customer call center and letters into the administrative offices looking for confirmation of coverage. Policy searches are done manually by looking at the individual administrative systems and/or eService. This results in very low rates of recovery, attenuated and displaced benefits and overall dissatisfaction by consumers with the various companies involved in these important products.
The present invention is directed to a solution to the above noted problem by providing a computer system that quickly and accurately identifies lost policies—for examples life policies where a death has occurred but no benefits were requested or paid. In a preferred arrangement, a computer system integrates an enhanced front end for developing targeted and easily processed inquiries from policy holders and other system users with a selectively programmed computer system that allows for policy searching—for both active and lapsed policies—on an enhanced, and accurate platform with important security considerations in place for linking to a selectively arranged policy database.
A user interface is provided, for example, via the Insurance Company website (e.g., MetLife.com), allowing a consumer to search for information related to a life insurance policy on themselves or a family member. The requestor will be asked to enter a number of data elements about the insured. Once submitted, a real time match process will take place to see if there is a possible match for that insured. If a possible match is found, the requestor will receive an appropriate message and will be asked to provide his/her contact information, as well as some additional supplementary information about the insured (e.g. last known addresses and names of parents, spouse, or children).
In one embodiment, all of the possible matches will be routed to a work queue for validation and/or research by an Insurance Company associate. Replies will be emailed to requestors, taking into account their relationship to the policy and the policy status. In another embodiment, the matched information will automatically be sent to the requestor without manual intervention from an Insurance Company associate. Normal rules related to who has rights to policy information will be utilized. For example, for in force policies where the insured is living, only the policy owner will be given information. For policies where the insured is deceased, the beneficiaries will be contacted with information about how to submit a claim. If no possible match is found, the requestor will receive an appropriate message advising such.
The Search functionality will strive to identify all in force, lapsed and expired Individual Business life policies associated to an Insured for all companies; or insurance proceeds being held in Unclaimed Funds (Death Claim and Maturity proceeds); and where there is a possible match, to facilitate follow up for confirmation or resolution.
In a preferred embodiment, policies for which proceeds have already been paid will not be searched (Death Claims, Maturities, and Surrenders), nor will policy proceeds already escheated to the state.
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One aspect of the preferred embodiment is directed to creating access through social media platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, where the system administrator registers a “page” or similar portal on the platform, and then promotes capabilities for using the portal to access policy data—including the existence of lapsed policies. Members of the social network will e.g. “friend” the system administrator, allowing access to that portal; in this way, selected messages and promotions can be targeted to these members based on the details that are available using the social network platform.
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The following sections discuss specific implementations of the invention. These implementations are illustrative and not limiting.
System Assumptions:
The following systems will be impacted:
It is understood, as described below, that the following requirements can be implemented in and by a computer system. For example, the requirements can be embodied in software operable to control a data-processor.
The invention described above is operational with general purpose or special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that may be suitable for use with the invention include, but are not limited to: personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, tablet devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like.
Components of the inventive computer system may include, but are not limited to, a processing unit, a system memory, and a system bus that couples various system components including the system memory to the processing unit. The system bus may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.
The computer system typically includes a variety of non-transitory computer-readable media. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can be accessed by the computer and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, and removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and not limitation, computer-readable media may comprise computer storage media and communication media. Computer storage media may store information such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can accessed by the computer. Communication media typically embodies computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of the any of the above should also be included within the scope of computer-readable media.
The computer system may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers. The remote computer may be a personal computer, a server, a router, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, and typically includes many or all of the elements described above relative to the computer. The logical connections depicted in include one or more local area networks (LAN) and one or more wide area networks (WAN), but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.
For ease of exposition, not every step or element of the present invention is described herein as part of software or computer system, but those skilled in the art will recognize that each step or element may have a corresponding computer system or software component. Such computer systems and/or software components are therefore enabled by describing their corresponding steps or elements (that is, their functionality), and are within the scope of the present invention. In addition, various steps and/or elements of the present invention may be stored in a non-transitory storage medium, and selectively executed by a processor.
The foregoing components of the present invention described as making up the various elements of the invention are intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. Many suitable components that would perform the same or similar functions as the components described are intended to be embraced within the scope of the invention. Such other components can include, for example, components developed after the development of the present invention.
The present application claims the priority of Provisional Application 61/730,294, filed on Nov. 27, 2012, the contents of which are incorporated by reference as if restated in full.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61730294 | Nov 2012 | US |
