US20210358045A1

Movatterモバイル変換

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Publication number: US20210358045A1
Application number: US14/871,230
Authority: US
Inventors: Leif Agerholm Roll; Andrew Patrick Wieduwilt
Original assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co
Current assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co
Priority date: 2014-10-06
Filing date: 2015-09-30
Publication date: 2021-11-18
Also published as: US20250148543A1; US12223550B2; US20210357481A1; US20230032514A1; US11501382B1; US20210133885A1; US10817949B1

Abstract

When results of a medical diagnostic examination performed on a patient are initially or newly generated and stored into a medical diagnostic provider system, procurement of binding quotes for health-related insurance that requires a medical diagnostic exam to be performed on potential insured parties may be automatically initiated or triggered. Procurement of binding quotes may include, with customer or patient permission, generation of a health profile of the patient based upon the examination results, provision of the health profile to one or more insurance providers (e.g., using an online auction), reception of one or more binding quotes from at least some of the insurance providers, and acceptance of one of the binding quotes on behalf of the patient, thereby entering into a binding contract for insurance. Using the techniques disclosed herein, the patient may automatically be provided with approved health-related insurance coverage upon completion of his or her medical examination.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and the benefit of:

- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/060,080 filed on Oct. 6, 2014 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a Maintaining Insurance Coverage,”
- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/104,596 filed on Jan. 16, 2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a Maintaining Insurance Coverage,”
- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/170,004 filed on Jun. 2, 2015 and entitled “Systems and Methods for Initiating the Procurement of Insurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations,”
- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/173,597 filed on Jun. 10, 2015 and entitled “Medical Diagnostic-Initiated Insurance Offering,”
- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/189,885 filed on Jul. 8, 2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a Maintaining Insurance Coverage,” and
- U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/199,008 filed on Jul. 30, 2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a Maintaining Insurance Coverage,” the entire disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure generally relates to insurance and, more specifically, to systems and methods for initiating the procurement of insurance coverage based upon medical diagnostic examinations.

BACKGROUND

Individuals who seek to be covered by health-related insurance and are sensitive to pricing and product features (e.g., coverage types and/or limits, deductibles, etc.) often expend considerable time and effort in finding insurance providers that best meet their needs. Some types of insurance require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on the potential insured party or insuree prior to generating and offering a binding quote, for example, life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, etc. Conventionally, a consumer seeking such insurance (e.g., via in an agent, online, mobile device, a tablet, a computing device, a call center, etc.) submits partial personal information to receive ballpark quotes for premium payments for a face value of an insurance policy. The partial personal information typically may include answers to a set of questions about the potential insured party that are provided by the potential insured party and/or by his or her agent. Examples of such partial personal information include gender; age; state and/or ZIP Code; height and weight; whether or not the potential insured party uses tobacco products or not; whether or not the potential insured party has certain medical conditions such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, depression, diabetes, etc.; whether or not any of the parents and/or siblings of the potential insured party have been diagnosed with medical conditions such as cancer, stroke and/or heart condition, etc.; and a general self-categorization of his or her health, e.g., fair, good, very good, excellent, etc.

In some scenarios, one or more desired insurance terms such as coverage amount, monthly premium amount, etc. may be submitted. Accordingly, the initiation of the procurement of insurance may be triggered by the submission, by a potential insured party or by an agent of the potential insured party, of partial personal information of the potential insured party to one or more insurance providers.

After the partial personal information has been submitted to and processed by one or more recipient insurance providers, the consumer may receive one or more estimates, ballpark quotes, and/or non-binding quotes for one or more possible insurance policies. Subsequently, the consumer may select a particular non-binding quote offered by a particular insurance carrier or provider (typically, based upon the premium payment amount), and may be required by the particular insurance carrier provider to undergo a medical diagnostic examination as part of the application process.

The results of the medical diagnostic examination may then be utilized to determine whether or not the potential insured party actually meets the insurance carrier or provider's risk profile for the particular insurance policy. If the results of the medical diagnostic examination (and, in some cases, other additional information) indicate that the potential insured party meets the risk profile or otherwise is an eligible insured party for the particular insurance policy, the insurance carrier or provider may generate a binding quote for the particular insurance policy based upon the results, and offer it to the consumer.

This conventional approach suffers from several drawbacks. For instance, a consumer may be required to submit partial personal information without knowing if he or she is actually medically eligible for the insurance policy being quoted. If he or she is not medically eligible as eventually is determined based upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results, the consumer may be required to adjust his or her desired insurance terms and resubmit his or her personal information in hopes of finding a suitable insurance policy for which he or she is eligible. This cycle may need to be repeated multiple times and as such, the consumer may be required to go through multiple redundant steps in order to eventually find a suitable policy.

Further, the initially provided non-binding quote may differ from the actual binding quote to a significant extent. In such situations, the consumer may again repeat the cycle in hopes of finding a suitable insurance premium amount. Thus, the consumer may be forced to guess at what particular terms will result in a suitable insurance policy for which he or she is an eligible insured party based upon the results of his or her yet-to-be-performed medical diagnostic examination.

SUMMARY

The present embodiments may, inter alia, automatically provide a consumer or patient with one or more offers for insurance corresponding to one or more health-related insurance policies for which the patient is an eligible insured party based upon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results, without requiring the patient to submit partial personal information and/or without requiring the patient to cyclically hone in on acceptable insurance terms. In some embodiments, insurance for the patient may automatically be procured and bound upon the initial availability of medical diagnostic examination results. Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and health insurance, to name a few. The initial provision of insurance offers may include one or more binding quotes, and the generation of the one or more binding quotes may be automatically triggered when the results of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on a patient are newly or initially determined and/or available.

Indeed, the generation of the one or more binding quotes may be automatically triggered based upon the initial availability of the examination results, and the one or more binding quotes may be the first or initial estimates or quotes for insurance based upon the newly available results which the consumer receives. In some embodiments, insurance may be automatically procured for the patient when the newly available examination results are initially made available. Thus, the time and/or effort that consumers must spend to find a suitable insurance policy may be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

In an aspect, a computer system for providing insurance triggered by medical diagnostics may be provided. The system may be operated by an insurance carrier or provider, for example. The system may include a network interface, one or more processors, and/or one or more data storage devices particularly configured with particular computer-executable instructions. The particular computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or processors, may cause the insurance provider system to receive, via the network interface from another computing system, a health profile of a patient, consumer, or customer. The health profile may have been determined based upon results of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the patient. The medical diagnostic examination may have included at least one invasive procedure (such as a blood draw), and the medical diagnostic examination may have been performed in conjunction with the patient's annual physical examination.

The insurance provider may be one of a plurality of insurance providers to which the health profile of the patient is provided, and the type or types of insurance provided by the insurance provider may include life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, health insurance, and/or another type of health-related insurance that requires potential insured parties to undergo a medical diagnostic examination. The particular computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, may cause the system to trigger, upon the reception of the health profile of the patient, an initial generation of one or more binding quotes for one or more health-related insurance policies for which the patient is eligible to be an insured party and provide, via the network interface, respective indications of the one or more binding quotes to another computing system, e.g., to the system from which the patient's health profile was received. The one or more binding quotes for the one or more health-related insurance policies corresponding to the patient may be an initial or an only set of quotes for the one or more insurance policies that are generated by the insurance provider system for the patient based on his or her health profile, in one embodiment. The particular computer-executable instructions may be further executable to cause the system to provide, via the one or more network interfaces, respective indications of the one or more binding quotes to the system from which the health profile was received.

In one embodiment, the initial generation of the one more binding quotes is based upon the health profile of the consumer as well as based upon one or more preferred insurance policy terms. The one or more preferred insurance policy terms may include, for example, an amount of a premium payment, a length of term, an insurance provider rating, a type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, and/or another insurance policy parameter or term. In some situations, at least some of the preferred insurance policy terms may be defined by the consumer, an agent of the consumer, and/or the insurance provider.

In one embodiment, the particular computer-executable instructions of the system may be further executable to receive, via the network interface from the another computing system, an indication that one of the one or more binding quotes has been selected. Based upon the indication of the selected binding quote, the system may bind the selected binding quote and/or cause underwriting to be performed on the selected binding quote, thereby enacting or establishing a health-related insurance policy for which the consumer is named as an insured party. In some embodiments, the system may cause at least the portion of a cost of the medical diagnostic examination to be refunded or credited towards a future premium of the particular insurance policy, e.g., after the insurance policy has been bound or enacted.

In some embodiments, a computing system that is operated and/or provided by the medical diagnostic provider may provide the medical examination results of the consumer (or a portion thereof) to the system, and/or may provide the health profile of the consumer to the system. In some embodiments, a computing system that is communicatively connected to the medical diagnostic provider computing system and that is operated and/or provided by a third-party (e.g., an insurance aggregator, an insurance procurer, etc.) may provide the medical examination results of the consumer (or a portion thereof) to the system, and/or may provide the health profile of the consumer to the system.

The system may include additional, fewer, or alternate elements, including those discussed elsewhere herein. Further, some or all elements of the system may perform one or more portions of any number of the methods discussed elsewhere herein.

In an aspect, a computer-implemented method for providing insurance triggered by medical diagnostics via an electronic or communications network may include receiving, via the electronic or communications network and by using a network interface of a system operated by an insurance provider, a health profile of a consumer. The consumer's health profile may have been determined based upon results of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the consumer, and the medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the consumer may have (i) included an invasive procedure, such as a blood draw, and/or (ii) may have been performed as part of an annual physical of the consumer. The insurance provider may be one of a plurality of insurance providers to which the health profile of the consumer is provided, and the types of insurance provided by the insurance provider may include life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and/or other types of health-related insurance that require a potential insured party to undergo a medical diagnostic examination.

The method may include triggering, upon the reception of the health profile of the consumer and via one or more processors of the insurance provider system, a generation of one or more binding quotes for one or more insurance policies for which the consumer is eligible to be an insured party. The generation of the one or more binding quotes may be based upon contents of the health profile of the consumer. In one embodiment, triggering the generation of the one or more binding quotes may be further based upon one or more preferred insurance policy terms, where the one or more preferred insurance policy terms may include an amount of a premium payment, a length of term, an insurance provider rating, a type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, and/or another insurance policy term or parameter. In some situations, one or more of the preferred insurance policy terms may be defined or indicated by the consumer, an agent of the consumer, and/or the insurance provider.

In some cases, the one or more binding quotes may be an initial set or an only of quotes that are generated by the insurance provider system for the one or more insurance policies corresponding to the consumer based on his or her health information. That is, the initially generated set of quotes may be an only or final set of binding quotes for the one or more health-related insurance policies.

The method may include providing, via the network interface and the electronic or communications network, respective indications of the one or more binding quotes to the another computing system (e.g., to the computing system from which the consumer's health profile was received); receiving, from the another computing system via the network interface and the electronic or communications network from the another computing system, an indication that one of the one or more binding quotes has been selected; and binding, via the one or more processors of the insurance provider system, the selected binding quote, wherein the bound, selected binding quote is for a particular health-related insurance policy for which the consumer is named as an insured party. In some embodiments, the method may include causing, by the one or more processors of the insurance provider system, underwriting to be performed on the selected binding quote. Additionally, in some embodiments, the method may include causing, by the one or more processors of the insurance provider system, at least the portion of a cost of the medical diagnostic examination to be refunded to the consumer or credited to a future premium of the particular insurance policy.

In some embodiments, the health profile of the consumer is received from a system that is operated and/or provided by the medical diagnostic provider which performed the medical diagnostic examination on the consumer. In some embodiments, the consumer's health profile is received from a third party system other than that of the medical diagnostic provider, e.g., a system of an insurance aggregator or an insurance procurer. The third party system, though, may be communicatively connected to the medical diagnostic provider computing system.

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein. Further, some or all of the method may be performed by any of the systems described herein, and/or in conjunction and with one or more portions of any of the other methods described herein.

With the present embodiments, a customer may first opt into a program or agreement (e.g., one offered by an intermediary entity such as the entity associated withcomputing system14 ofFIG. 1), and willingly share his or her personal data (and/or vehicle data, health data, mobile device data, etc.) for purposes of obtaining insurance coverage. In return, the customer may obtain one or more benefits that may be provided by various embodiments described herein, such as superior insurance rates/terms, and/or automatic renewal (or change) of insurance policies with little or no effort by the customer, for example. In some embodiments, customers who opt in may also receive other benefits, such as insurance discounts or rewards, for example.

Advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description of the preferred embodiments which have been shown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, the present embodiments may be capable of other and different embodiments, and their details are capable of modification in various respects. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The Figures described below depict various aspects of the system and methods disclosed therein. It should be understood that each Figure depicts an embodiment of a particular aspect of the disclosed system and methods, and that each of the Figures is intended to accord with a possible embodiment thereof. Further, wherever possible, the following description refers to the reference numerals included in the following Figures, in which features depicted in multiple Figures are designated with consistent reference numerals.

There are shown in the drawings arrangements which are presently discussed, it being understood, however, that the present embodiments are not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment including components associated with providing insurance and/or insurance offers based upon medical diagnostic examinations, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary computer system in which the techniques described herein may be implemented, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method for providing or initiating procurement of insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations;

FIG. 4 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method for providing or procuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations;

FIGS. 5 and 6 depict additional exemplary computer-implemented methods for providing or procuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations, and providing refunds of medical diagnostic provider or laboratory (MDL) exam costs to health-related insurance policy customers;

FIG. 7 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of auctioning groups or bundles of life or other health-related insurance policies; and

FIG. 8 depicts an exemplary method for providing or initiating offers for insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations.

The Figures depict preferred embodiments for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the systems and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

I. Exemplary Environment for Medical Diagnostic Examination-Initiated Insurance Offers and/or Procurement

The present embodiments relate to, inter alia, automatically initiating procurement of insurance for types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party. Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and health insurance, to name a few.

Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may allow patients or potential consumers to automatically receive one or more binding quotes for one or more insurance policies for which they are eligible or have been pre-approved as an insured party after the patient has undergone a medical diagnostic exam, without requiring the consumer to initially submit any partial personal information, and/or without requiring the patient or consumer to guess at or predict which specific insurance terms may eventually render the patient as eligible or approved for health-related insurance coverage. In some cases, the techniques disclosed herein the automatic procurement of insurance includes automatically establishing an in-force insurance policy based upon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results.

In one embodiment, the techniques disclosed herein may include selecting a set of patients who have been determined to be eligible insured parties of particular insurance offer(s) based upon their medical diagnostic examination results, and triggering the initial provision of the insurance offers. The completion of a particular patient's medical diagnostic examination and the initial availability of its results may automatically trigger the procurement of insurance for which the particular patient is an eligible, pre-approved party.

Generally, the offered and/or procured health-related insurance is/are types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, and as such, the techniques disclosed herein initially provide the patients with insurance and/or insurance offers for which they have been pre-approved. For ease of discussion herein, a “customer,” “consumer,” or “patient” generally refers to a person who has undergone a medical diagnostic examination, and who is a potential insured party or insuree of (i.e., potentially will be covered by) one or more health-related insurance policies. However, any number of the techniques described herein may equally apply to situations in which a “consumer” is an agent of the patient or potential insured party, e.g., a parent of a minor for which insurance coverage is desired, a person who has power of attorney for a potential insured party, etc.

With regard to medical diagnostic-initiated insurance offerings, a patient or potential insured party may undergo a medical diagnostic examination. Typically, the medical diagnostic examination is physically performed on the patient by a medical diagnostic provider, such as a physician or other medical professional, a medical diagnostics laboratory, or the like. The medical diagnostic examination may include one or more invasive procedures, such as a blood draw and respective analysis, a rectal exam, etc. Additionally or alternatively, the medical diagnostic examination may include one or more other non-invasive procedures, such as taking measurements (e.g., weight, blood pressure, etc.), palpation, or obtaining a culture. The medical diagnostic examination may be an annual physical examination, for example.

In some embodiments, prior to or as part of the medical diagnostic examination, the patient (and/or his or her agent) may give permission, affirmative consent or assent to initiating the automatic procurement of insurance when the exam results are made available, for example, by authorizing or granting permission for the release of his or her medical information and/or by waving his or her right to privacy. Additionally or alternatively, the patient (and/or his or her agent) may give permission for health-related insurance to be obtained (and in some cases, enacted as an in-force insurance policy) on his or her behalf.

The result of the medical diagnostic examination may be stored, e.g., in a medical records database and/or other database. The results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination may be stored at an insurance procurement system which, in one embodiment, may be owned and/or operated by the medical diagnostic provider. In some embodiments, the results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination may be stored at the medical diagnostic provider system or at a third party system under the direction of the medical diagnostic provider system, but nonetheless be made available to the insurance procurement system. The insurance procurement system may automatically operate on stored medical examination results (with customer permission) to determine if a particular patient for whom results have been newly added is eligible for one or more types of insurance policies for which medical diagnostic examinations are a pre-requisite. Additionally or alternatively, the insurance procurement system may operate on a plurality of stored medical examination results to determine which of the corresponding patients are eligible for one or more types of insurance policies for which medical diagnostic examinations are a pre-requisite. In some situations, the insurance procurement system may automatically act on a particular patient or consumer's behalf (with customer permission) to automatically determine, based upon the results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination, one more insurance carriers or providers that are able to offer insurance policies that best meet the consumer's need, e.g., by using an online or other auction model.

In one example, the insurance procurement system may automatically generate a health profile of the patient based upon his or her stored medical diagnostic examination results and provide the health profile of the patient or consumer (and, optionally, an indication of one or more patient or consumer preferences and/or requirements) to computing systems of one or more insurance carriers or providers for bidding. The insurance providers' computing systems may return bids and/or offers for insurance that have been tailored to the patient or consumer, and/or for which the patient or consumer has been determined to be an eligible or approved insured party. Such offers may include binding quotes, as the offers were generated based upon the results of a comprehensive medical diagnostic examination of the patient.

The binding quotes may be the initial, first, or only estimates of quotes for insurance (either binding or non-binding) that are generated by the insurance providers' computing systems corresponding to the consumer or patient. Similarly, the binding quotes may be the initial, first, or only estimates of quotes for insurance (either binding or non-binding) that the consumer or patient is provided based upon his or her available (and in some cases, newly available) medical diagnostic examination results. Subsequently, in some embodiments, the insurance procurement system may select one of the offers for insurance on behalf of the patient or consumer, e.g., based upon consumer preferences and/or requirements, thereby entering into a contract for insurance on behalf of the patient or consumer.

In another example, the insurance procurement system may automatically generate a health profile of a patient (with customer permission) based upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results, and/or may provide the health profile the patient (and, optionally, an indication of one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements) to computing systems of one or more insurance carriers or providers. The insurance providers computing systems may return offers for insurance that have been determined based upon the patient's health profile and, optionally, on the one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements. Typically, the offers for insurance may include binding quotes. The insurance procurement system may cause indications of the offers for insurance to be presented to a user, and/or may receive a user selection of one of the offers. The insurance procurement system may then provide, to the insurance provider computing system from which the selected offer was received, an indication that the selected offer was chosen by the user.

In yet another example, each set of stored medical examination results for a set of patients may be used to determine a respective health profile of each patient included in the set. Based upon the contents of a given health profile, the insurance procurement system may determine whether or not the corresponding patient is eligible as an insured party for one or more offers of one or more types of insurance. If the patient is eligible, the insurance procurement system may provide the health profile of the patient (and, optionally, an indication of one or more preferences and/or requirements on an insurance policy and/or insurance provider) to one or more computing systems of one or more insurance carriers or providers. The insurance providers' computing systems may return offers for insurance that have been tailored to the patient and for which the patient has been already determined to be an eligible or approved insured party. Such offers may include binding quotes, as the offers were generated based upon the results of the comprehensive medical diagnostic examination of the patient, as indicated in the health profile. The binding quotes may be the initial, first, sole, or only estimates or quotes (either binding or non-binding) for insurance that the patient and/or his or her agent is provided or notified of based upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results.

By using one or more of the techniques described above, consumers may be able to automatically obtain offers for insurance and/or enacted, in-force insurance coverage at the most competitive price and/or with the most desired features without the hassles of shopping for insurance on their own. In fact, the completion of the medical diagnostic examination may initiate or trigger the automatic procurement and/or enactment of insurance coverage on behalf of a consumer or patient from the most recent or immediate results of his or her medical diagnostic examination, thus saving the consumer or patient from needing to initiate the procurement process and provide partial personal information, as well as from lengthy delays and repetitive actions. For example, an online or other auction for possible insurance policies for the consumer or patient may be triggered and procured by a completion of the patient's annual physical. As such, the insurance procurement process may be streamlined and take less time to complete, and may provide more accurate, initial binding quotes to the consumer or patient.

II. Exemplary Environment for Automatically Initiating Insurance Coverage Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Exams

FIG. 1 depicts anexemplary environment10 including components associated with obtaining insurance offers and/or insurance coverage that is triggered or initiated based upon completion of or completed medical diagnostic examinations, according to one embodiment. As illustrated inFIG. 1, theenvironment10 may include acomputing device12 that is operated by a consumer, patient, or customer, or by an agent thereof. Thecomputing device12 may be any suitable type of computing device having wired and/or wireless communication capabilities, such as a personal computer, tablet, phablet, smartphone, etc.

Theenvironment10 may include aninsurance procurement system14, which may comprise a computing system. Theinsurance procurement system14 may include one or more servers, or may include a plurality of networked computing devices that have an appearance of a single, logical computing device or system, e.g., a group of cloud computing devices, a peer group of computing devices, or the like. Theinsurance procurement system14 may be communicatively coupled to thecomputing device12 via one or more electronic or communications networks (not shown inFIG. 1). The one or more electronic or communications networks may be a single network, or may include multiple networks of one or more types (e.g., one or more wired and/or wireless local area networks (LANs), and/or one or more wired and/or wireless wide area networks (WANs) such as the Internet), for example.

Theenvironment10 may include computing systems16-1 through16-N associated with N respective insurance carriers or providers (e.g., two insurance providers, five insurance providers, etc.). Each of the computing systems16-1 through16-N may include one or more servers of the respective insurance provider, or may include a plurality of networked computing devices that have an appearance of a single, logical computing device or system, e.g., a group of cloud computing devices, a peer group of computing devices, or the like. Each of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N may be communicatively coupled toinsurance procurement system14 via one or more electronic or communications networks (not shown inFIG. 1). The one or more electronic or communications networks may be a single network, or may include multiple networks of one or more types (e.g., one or more wired and/or wireless LANs, and/or one or more wired and/or wireless WANs such as the Internet), for example. Each of the insurance providers16-1 through16-N may be a company or organization providing a particular type or types of insurance that require a potential insured party to undergo a medical diagnostic examination, the results of which are used to determine insurance policy terms, e.g., health-related insurance. Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance, and health insurance, to name a few.

Theinsurance procurement system14 may include various units, including ahealth profiler unit20, aneligibility determiner unit21, aprovider selector unit22, apolicy procurement unit24 and/or anotification unit26. Each of some or all of the

units

20,21,22,24 and26 may be (or may include) a respective set of one or more computing devices or processors that executes software or computer-executable instructions to perform the corresponding functions described herein. Alternatively, each of some or all of the

units

20,21,22,24 and26 may be, or include, a respective component of software or set of computer-executable instructions that is stored on one or more tangible, non-transitory computer-readable media (e.g., a random access memory (RAM) and/or read-only memory (ROM) of the insurance procurement system14) and that is executed by one or more processors of theinsurance procurement system14 to perform the corresponding functions described herein. Still additionally or alternatively, each of some or all of the

units

20,21,22,24 and26 may at least partially comprise hardware and/or firmware. Further, one or more of the

units

20,21,22,24 and26 may be combined into a single unit, or may be omitted. In various different embodiments, for example, theinsurance procurement system14 may not include theeligibility determiner unit21, theprovider selector unit22, and/or thenotification unit26.

In one embodiment, thehealth profiler unit20 may determine a health profile of a patient (with patient permission) based upon the results of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the patient. The patient's medical diagnostic examination results (or portions thereof) may be received at theinsurance procurement system14 from asystem34 provided by the medical diagnostic provider of the patient, and the received results may be stored in an examination results database ordata storage entity30, which may be configured to store the medical diagnostic examination results of multiple patients. The examination resultsdatabase30 may be any suitable type of persistent memory, and may comprise one or more data storage devices that have the appearance of a single, logical data storage device. Thehealth profiler unit20 may obtain at least some of the data included in the patient's stored, medical diagnostic examination results. Additionally or alternatively, thehealth profiler unit20 may be triggered to determine the health profile of a patient when corresponding examination results are stored into thedata base30. For example, the act of initially storing a new set of examination results may trigger thehealth profiler unit20 to generate a corresponding health profile. Additionally or alternatively, thehealth profiler unit20 may regularly scan thedatabase30 for newly added examination results and/or generate new health profiles therefrom (with patient permission), and/or thehealth profiler unit20 may determine health profiles when directed to by a user or by another system.

Thehealth profiler unit20 may utilize the obtained examination results data to generate a health profile of the patient (with patient permission). Generally speaking, the medical diagnostic examination results of the patient may include measurements, analysis results, observations or comments provided by a medical professional, and/or any other data or information that was obtained during and/or as a result of the performance of the medical diagnostic examination. On the other hand, a health profile of the patient generally includes a subset of the information stored in the patient's examination results, e.g., the subset of information which may be utilized by an insurance provider to determine whether or not the patient meets the insurance providers risk profile for various insurance policies.

For example, a patient's health profile may include types of diagnostic examination results or data that have been pre-determined to be statistically significant in determining and/or defining the terms of an insurance policy, and an insurance provider may utilize the health profile to determine whether or not a patient is an acceptable risk for various insurance policies. The health profile may include characterizations and or categorizations of various aspects of the patient's health that were determined based upon one or more data points of the stored, medical diagnostic exam results. In some cases, the subset of information may include aggregated, averaged, or otherwise combined data from the stored, medical diagnostic exam results of the patient. The content and format of the patient's health profile may be consistent with that utilized by insurance providers for ease and convenience of use.

Aneligibility determiner unit21 of theinsurance procurement system14 may determine (with patient permission), based upon the contents of a health profile, whether or not the corresponding patient is potentially eligible for one or more offers for one or more types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party. The determination may be based upon, for example, data and/or information included in the health profile of the patient. Additionally or alternatively, the determination may be made based upon, for example information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria provided by each of the insurance providers16-1 to16-N, the medicaldiagnostic provider34, theinsurance procurer14, and/or in some cases, by the patient or the patient's agent.

The information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria that are provided by each of the insurance providers16-1 to16-N and/or by the medicaldiagnostic provider34 may be stored in aprovider database32, in one embodiment, and may be accessed by theeligibility determiner unit21 and/or by theprovider selector unit24. Theprovider database32 may be any suitable type of persistent memory, and may comprise one or more data storage devices that have the appearance of a single, logical data storage device, although in some cases, theexamination results database30 and theprovider database32 may an integral database.

The information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria that are provided by the patient or the patient's agent may include preferences for and/or requirements on the insurance policies, offers, and/or the insurance carriers or providers, and may be stored in conjunction with the patient's examination results, e.g. in conjunction with the patient's medical diagnostic examination results in theexamination results database30, and/or in another database. For example, one or more desired and/or required insurance policy terms may be indicated a priori and used to perform the selection. Such desired and/or required terms may include, for example, a premium amount, a length of term, an insurance provider rating, a desired type of insurance, a payout or face value amount, a cash surrender value, a dividend, a lapse rate, an annuity amount, a settlement option, a deductible amount, a limit or coverage amount, and/or another insurance policy term.

In some cases, a prioritization of different insurance policy terms may be provided. For example, a consumer may require a life insurance policy with a face value of $1,000,000, but may be open to considering a range of premium amounts. Additionally or alternatively, other preferences or requirements relating to insurance, for example, a preference for an insurance company that offers live insurance agents, may be indicated. Generally, any number of preferences and/or requirements (and optionally, respective priorities thereof) for one or more insurance terms, characteristics of insurance policies, and/or characteristics of insurance companies or providers may be indicated (e.g., a priori by the medical diagnostic provider, by the insurance procurer, by one or more of the insurance providers, and/or by the patient or an agent of the patient), and may be used in the selection process.

In some situations, at least a part of the consumer's desired preferences and/or requirements may be received via thecomputing device12 and provided to theinsurance procurement system14. For example, thehealth profiler unit20, theprovider selector unit22, or some other portion of thesystem14 may provide on-line forms as one or more web pages (e.g., HTML files, JavaServer Pages files, etc.) stored in a memory of theinsurance procurement system14, and a user may use web browser applications executing on thecomputing device12 to access the web page(s). In some situations, at least a part of the consumer's desired preferences and/or requirements may be obtained during a patient's medical diagnostic examination, and the preferences and/or requirements may be provided by the medical diagnosticprovider computing system34 to theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., in conjunction with the consumer's medical diagnostic examination results.

Whether the consumer's preferences and/or requirements are obtained by theinsurance procurement system14 via the on-line forms, via accessing theexamination results database30 or other data storage entity, and/or via other suitable means, and/or whether the medicaldiagnostic provider34 and/orinsurance provider16 preferences and/or requirements are obtained by theinsurance procurement system14 via on-line forms, via accessing theprovider database32 or other data storage entity, via messaging or other communications, and/or via other suitable means, thehealth profiler unit20 and/or theprovider selector unit22 of thesystem14 may collect or obtain the insurance preferences and/or requirements, and theprovider selector unit22 may utilize the collected insurance preferences and/or requirements to determine or select one or more insurance providers1-N to which the patient's health profile is to be sent for bid or quote. The determination of patient eligibility (e.g., by the eligibility determiner unit21) and the determination/selection of the recipient insurance provider computing systems that are to receive the patient's health profile (e.g., by the provider selector unit22) may be performed sequentially, concurrently, and/or iteratively.

Further, as previously discussed, the selection of recipient insurance providers may be based upon data included in and/or characteristics of the patient's health profile, and/or may be based upon characteristics of the types of insurance products offered by the different insurance providers1-N. For example, if insurance provider2 offers life insurance products for diabetics, insurance provider computing system16-2 would be selected for diabetic patients, as indicated by the data included in the patients' health profiles.

In one embodiment, the characteristics of the types of insurance products offered by the different insurance providers1-N may be stored in a provider database ordata storage entity32. Additionally or alternatively, the selection of recipient insurance providers may be based upon other criteria that are not related to consumers or patients at all, such as random selection of insurance providers, ordered selection, network and/orinsurance provider system16 availability, etc.

In some embodiments, theprovider selector unit22 of theinsurance procurement system14 may filter the set of possible insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N, and may send the request for quote to only a subset of the systems16-1 through16-N. For example, theinsurance procurement system14 may determine the subset of insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N to which the health profile of the patient is to be sent based upon one or more preferences for insurance terms, policy characteristics, and/or provider characteristics as indicated by the consumer. In some situations, one or more preferences for insurance terms, insurance providers, and/or other characteristics of insurance policies as indicated by the consumer may be sent or provided with the health profile to each of the selected insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N.

In some situations, theprovider selector unit22 may be omitted from thesystem14, such as when theinsurance procurement system14 is communicatively connected to the computing system(s) of only a single insurance carrier, provider, or company. For example, thesystem14 may be communicatively connected to only the computing system16-N and not to any of the computing systems16-1 through16-(N−1). In one embodiment, the entity or organization that owns and/or operates theinsurance procurement system14 may be a subsidiary or business partner of the insurance company N. As such, in situations in which a medical diagnostic provider owns and/or operates theinsurance procurement system14, the medical diagnostic provider may be a subsidiary or other type of business partner of the insurance company N.

Further, at least some or all of theeligibility determiner unit21 may be included in thehealth profiler unit20, theprovider selector unit22, and/or some other unit of theinsurance procurement system14. Theeligibility determiner unit21 may be omitted, such as when all health profiles are automatically sent to one or more insurance providers to16-1 to16-N. In some embodiments, theeligibility determiner unit21 and theprovider selector unit22 are an integral unit.

Apolicy procurement unit24 may obtain or procure one or more offers for insurance, e.g., when the patient has been determined to be a potential, eligible insured party. Thepolicy procurement unit24 may conduct an automated auction in order to obtain insurance policies for the patient, e.g. in a manner similar to that described in U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, filed on Jan. 16, 2015 and whose entire contents are hereby incorporated herein by reference, or in another suitable manner. For example, thepolicy procurement unit24 may send or provide, to each of the selected insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N, the health profile of the patient and/or other selected data indicative of the patient's examination results that are stored in thedatabase30, along with a request for insurance premium quotes.

After analyzing the information, one or more of the insurance providers may decide to bid on the provision of insurance to the consumer, and/orpolicy procurement unit24 may receive the bid(s) from the respective ones of insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N.Policy procurement unit24 may send each received bid to all others of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N, and/or bidding may continue in an iterative fashion until auction termination criteria have been met (e.g., until a predetermined amount of time elapses, or until a predetermined amount of time since the last bid elapses, etc.). The insurance provider having the best bid (e.g., lowest price and/or best non-price features) at the time the auction terminates may be granted the ability to provide insurance to the consumer. Typically, the bids of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N may be, or may include, binding quotes or offers for respective insurance policies that have been generated or determined based upon the health profile of the consumer. Accordingly, the terms of the insurance policy corresponding to a binding quote may not change (although a lifetime of the binding quote typically is finite and may be indicated as such), and upon acceptance of the binding quote, a corresponding contract for insurance may be enacted or entered into, by theinsurance procurement system14, on behalf of the consumer.

In another embodiment, thepolicy procurement unit24 may obtain the best rate or the most suitable insurance policy for the patient not by conducting an auction, but rather by automatically requesting a single quote from each of the insurance providers, and taking the best quote (e.g., the lowest premium, and/or a quote with other features best matching the consumer's preferences and/or requirements). Similar to the auction embodiments described above,policy procurement unit24 may automatically request a round of quotes from the insurance providers at when new or updated medical diagnostic exam results of the patient are available. For example, thepolicy procurement unit24 may automatically send or provide the health profile of the patient and optionally one or more preferred insurance terms, insurance policy characteristics, and/or insurance provider characteristics as indicated by the patient or consumer to the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N. Thenotification unit26 may simply notify the consumer of the accepted policy and provider, or may first request confirmation or selection of a particular policy/provider. The presentation of the candidate insurance offers for selection and/or confirmation may be performed electronically, e.g., via a user interface of thecomputing device12.

Whether the one or more binding quotes are generated by an auction, by a single bid or quote, or by some other suitable manner, theinsurance procurement system14 may receive, from one or more responding insurance provider computing systems16-1 to16-N, one or more binding quotes for offers for insurance. The one or more binding quotes may be for a same type of insurance, and/or may be for different types of insurance. Additionally or alternatively, at least some of the binding quotes may be for a same or similar set of insurance policy terms, and/or at least some of the binding quotes may be for different insurance policy terms. In one embodiment, thenotification unit26 of theinsurance procurement system14 may cause indications of the one or more received binding offers for insurance to be provided to a user, e.g. by presentation at a respective user interface of the

systems

12,14,34, and/or at least one of16-1 to16-N, by email, by physical letter, etc., thereby initiating the one or more offers for the one or more types of insurance for which the patient has been determined to be eligible and that include one or more binding quotes, any one of which may result in a contract for insurance upon its acceptance.

In one embodiment, in response to the insurance offer notifications, theinsurance procurement system14 may receive an indication of a selection of one of the binding quotes, e.g., at a respective user interface of the

systems

12,14,34, and/or at least one of16-1 to16-N, by email, by physical letter, etc. For example, a selection of one of the binding quotes may be provided by the patient and/or by the patient's agent. Theinsurance procurement system14 may provide an indication, to the insurance provider computing system16xof the selected binding quote, that the particular binding quote has been selected. The insurance provider computing system16xof the selected binding quote may proceed to underwrite, bind, and/or perform other actions to move the insurance policy towards being in force. Further, the insurance provider computing system16xmay provide, to theinsurance procurement system14, one or more indications that one or more of the actions has been completed, e.g., that the policy has been underwritten, that the policy has been bound, that the policy is in-force, etc. Upon reception of one or more indications of rendering actions that have been completed by the insurance provider computing system16x, theinsurance procurement system14 may refund at least a part of the cost of the medical diagnostic examination, and/or may credit at least a part of the cost of the medical diagnostic examination towards future premiums of the insurance policy.

In some embodiments, the binding quotes or offers for insurance policies that have been generated for the patient are the first offers for insurance that have been generated and brought to the patient's attention that have been generated based upon the patient's recently performed medical diagnostic examination. That is, the patient has no prior knowledge of potential offers for insurance that may be generated based upon his or her medical examination results, and is conveniently provided with one or more binding quotes for insurance for which the patient has already been determined to be eligible as an insured party.

In other embodiments, though, a patient may be aware that his or her examination results will be automatically be analyzed to procure offers for insurance for which the patient is determined to be an eligible insured party. For example, a patient or the patient's agent may provide his or her a priori authorization for theinsurance procurement system14 to enter into a binding contract for a suitable insurance policy on behalf of the patient, with or without some explicit confirmation for election by the patient. If a contract is automatically established by theinsurance procurement system14, thepolicy procurement unit24 may indicate to the insurance provider providing the best bid that the best bid has been accepted, and thenotification unit26 may cause the patient or the patient's agent to be informed of the insurance provider and the new policy (e.g., electronically at a user interface of thecomputing device12, by email, by physical letter, etc.).

If patient or agent confirmation or selection is required,notification unit26 may instead cause the patient or agent thereof to be sent an indication of the best offer or offers and the corresponding providers (e.g., electronically at a user interface of thecomputing device12, by email, by physical letter, etc.) along with a request for confirmation or selection.Policy procurement unit24 may then form the contract with the winning insurance provider after the confirmation or selection, for example. In one embodiment, the presentation of the candidate insurance offers for selection and/or confirmation may be performed electronically, e.g., at a user interface of thecomputing device12 via a web-browser or client application that has been downloaded to theuser device12 from theprocurement system14.

Thus, as discussed above, in some embodiments, theinsurance procurement system14 may automatically select one of the received quotes on behalf of the patient, e.g., based upon the patient's health profile and one or more preferred insurance terms and/or other characteristics of the insurance provider and/or of the policy. For example, theinsurance procurement system14 may compare the insurance policy terms and/or characteristics of each of the received quotes as part of the selection process, e.g. in light of the patient's health profile, preferences for particular insurance terms, characteristics, and/or providers, if such preferences are available.

In other embodiments, theinsurance procurement system14 may receive the quotes from the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N, and may cause multiple quotes to be presented to the patient or other user for selection. In some of these cases, theinsurance procurement system14 may filter the received quotes prior to sending a subset of the received quotes for the consumer's consideration. For example, theinsurance procurement system14 may filter the received quotes based upon one or more preferences for particular insurance terms, insurance policy characteristics, and/or insurance provider characteristics indicated by the patient or the patient's agent, if such preferences are available.

Theinsurance procurement system14 may be authorized to enter a binding contract for the policy on behalf of the consumer, or may require some confirmation for election by the consumer. If a contract is automatically established by theinsurance procurement system14, thepolicy procurement unit24 may indicate to the insurance provider providing the best bid that the best bid has been accepted, and/or anotification unit26 may cause the consumer to be informed of the insurance provider and the new policy (e.g., electronically at a user interface of thecomputing device12, by email, by physical letter, etc.). If consumer confirmation or selection is required,notification unit26 may instead cause the consumer to be sent an indication of the best offer or offers and the corresponding providers (e.g., electronically at a user interface of thecomputing device12, by email, by physical letter, etc.) along with a request for confirmation or selection.Policy procurement unit24 may then form the contract with the winning insurance provider after the confirmation or selection, for example. The presentation of the candidate insurance offers for selection and/or confirmation may be performed electronically, e.g., at a user interface of thecomputing device12.

In one embodiment, theinsurance procurement system14 may be owned and/or operated by a medical diagnostic provider, such as a physician or other medical professional, a medical diagnostic laboratory (MDL), or other organization providing medical diagnostic examinations to patients. For example, theinsurance procurement system14 may be included in and/or integrated with acomputing system34 that is owned and/or operated by the medical diagnostic provider that performed at least a part of the diagnostic examination of the patient and/or at least part of the results analysis therefrom. Data obtained during the medical diagnostic examination of the patient may be stored (and/or may be analyzed and stored) in theexamination results database30 by other portions of the medical diagnostic provider computing system upon completion of the examination.

In another embodiment, theinsurance procurement system14 may be owned and/or operated by another entity that may not be a medical diagnostic provider, such as by an insurance aggregator, insurance procurer, or other third party organization. In this embodiment, though, theinsurance procurement system14 may nonetheless be communicatively connected to one ormore computing systems34 of one or more medical diagnostic providers, as shown inFIG. 1.

Thus, as theinsurance procurement system14 is configured to automatically initiate or trigger the automatic procurement of insurance coverage on behalf of a patient from the most recent or immediate results of his or her medical diagnostic examination, network traffic within the environment10 (and indeed, message traffic and resources that are utilized by each of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, theinsurance procurement system14, and at each of the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N) is significantly decreased over known techniques and methods for procuring insurance for the patient. Further, as compared to known techniques and methods, fewer processor cycles and memory records are needed at the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, theinsurance procurement system14, and/or at each of the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N to procure insurance for the patient. As such, not only is the patient or consumer saved from needing to initiate the procurement process and provide partial personal information, and is saved from incurring lengthy delays and repetitive actions during the insurance procurement process, but computing system resources and network traffic are also significantly decreased.

III. Exemplary Computer System for Automatically Initiating Insurance Coverage Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Exams

FIG. 2 depicts anexemplary computer system300 in which the techniques described herein may be implemented. In one embodiment, thecomputer system300 may be included in thesystem10 ofFIG. 1. For example, any one or more of the units20-26 may comprise one or more instances of thecomputer system300, theinsurance procurement system14 may comprise one or more instances of thecomputer system300, the medicaldiagnostic provider system34 may comprise one or more instances of thecomputer system300, and/or each of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 to16-N may comprise one or more instances of thecomputer system300. Thecomputer system300 ofFIG. 2 may include a computing device in the form of acomputer310. Components of thecomputer310 may include, but are not limited to, aprocessing unit320, asystem memory330, and/or asystem bus321 that couples various system components including thesystem memory330 to theprocessing unit320.

Thesystem bus321 may be any of several types of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, or a local bus, and may use any suitable bus architecture. By way of example, and not limitation, such architectures include the 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).

Computer

310 typically may include a variety of computer-readable media. Computer-readable media may be any available media that can be accessed bycomputer310 and may include both volatile and nonvolatile media, and both 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 includes tangible, non-transitory, volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for non-transitory storage of information, such as computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer storage media may include, 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 bycomputer310. 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, radio frequency (RF), infrared and other wireless media. Combinations of any of the above are also included within the scope of computer-readable media.

Thesystem memory330 may include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM)331 and random access memory (RAM)332. A basic input/output system333 (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer information between elements withincomputer310, such as during start-up, is typically stored inROM331.RAM332 may typically contain data and/or program modules that are immediately accessible to, and/or presently being operated on, by processingunit320. By way of example, and not limitation,FIG. 2 illustratesoperating system334,application programs335,other program modules336, andprogram data337.

Thecomputer310 may also include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 2 illustrates ahard disk drive341 that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, apersistent memory port351 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile persistent memory card ordevice352 such as a solid-state drive, a flash drive, a media card, a memory stick, etc., and anoptical disk drive355 that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatileoptical disk356 such as a CD ROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that may be used in the exemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Thehard disk drive341 may be connected to thesystem bus321 through a non-removable memory interface such asinterface340, andpersistent memory port351 andoptical disk drive355 may be connected to thesystem bus321 by a removable memory interface, such asinterface350.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed above and illustrated inFIG. 2 provide storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputer310. InFIG. 2, for example,hard disk drive341 is illustrated as storingoperating system344,application programs345,other program modules346, andprogram data347. Note that these components may either be the same as or different fromoperating system334,application programs335,other program modules336, andprogram data337.Operating system344,application programs345,other program modules346, andprogram data347 are given different numbers here to illustrate that, at a minimum, they are different copies.

A user may enter commands and information into thecomputer310 through input devices such as cursor control device361 (e.g., a mouse, trackball, touch pad, etc.) andkeyboard362. Amonitor391 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus321 via an interface, such as avideo interface390. In addition to the monitor, computers may also include other peripheral output devices such asprinter396, which may be connected through an outputperipheral interface395.

Thecomputer310 may operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers, such as aremote computer380. Theremote computer380 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 thecomputer310, although only amemory storage device381 has been illustrated inFIG. 2. The logical connections depicted inFIG. 2 include a local area network (LAN)371 and a wide area network (WAN)373, but may also include other networks. Such networking environments are commonplace in hospitals, offices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, thecomputer310 is connected to theLAN371 through a network interface oradapter370. When used in a WAN networking environment, thecomputer310 typically includes amodem372 or other means for establishing communications over theWAN373, such as the Internet. Themodem372, which may be internal or external and/or wired or wireless, may be connected to thesystem bus321 via theinput interface360, or other appropriate mechanism. The

communications connections

370,372, which allow the device to communicate with other devices, are an example of communication media, as discussed above, and may include one or more respective transceivers. In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to thecomputer310, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remotememory storage device381. By way of example, and not limitation,FIG. 2 illustratesremote application programs385 as residing onmemory device381.

In some configurations, thecomputer310 may be included in a plurality of networked computers or computing devices that have the logical appearance as a single, integral computing node, e.g., a cloud computing system. For example, theapplication programs345,other program modules346 and/orprogram data337 may be stored in and executed by the logical, single computing node.

The techniques for automatically initiating insurance coverage based upon completion of medical diagnostic examinations described herein may be implemented in part or in their entirety within a computer system such as thecomputer system300 illustrated inFIG. 2. Thecomputer310 may be a server or computing device of an insurance procurement system (e.g., within theinsurance procurement system14 ofFIG. 1), and theremote computer380 may be a server or computing device of an insurance provider (e.g., within one of the computing systems16-1 through16-N ofFIG. 1), for example. In some such embodiments, theLAN371 may be omitted (e.g., communications may betweencomputer310 andcomputer380 may only occur via WAN373).Application programs335 and/orapplication programs345 may include programs or perspective, particular computer-executable instructions that implement thehealth profiler unit20, theeligibility determiner unit21, theprovider selector unit22, thepolicy procurement unit24, and/or thenotification unit26 ofFIG. 1, for example.Examination results database30 and/orprovider database32 may be stored onhard disk drive341,persistent memory device352 oroptical disk356, for example. In some embodiments,examination results database30 and/orprovider database32 may be stored on one or more other data storage devices that are not included in thecomputer system300 but nonetheless may be accessible by thecomputer system300.

In operation, thecomputer310 may receive from theremote computer380 one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements for any number of insurance terms, insurance policy characteristics, and/or insurance provider characteristics (not shown inFIG. 2), for example, when theremote computer380 comprises aconsumer computing device12. Further,computer310 may receive from theremote computer380 bids, binding quotes, and/or insurance offers (not shown inFIG. 2), for example when theremote computer380 comprises one or more of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N. Thecomputer310 may then determine the winning bid and/or the candidate insurance offers, and notify the consumer by sending messages (e.g., emails) to the consumer computing device and/or providing an indication of the winning bid and/or the candidate insurance offers at a user interface of the consumer computing device, for example.

IV. Exemplary Method for Providing or Initiating Procurement of Insurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 3 illustrates anexemplary method400 of providing or initiating procurement of insurance based upon completion of medical diagnostic examinations. In one embodiment, at least a portion of themethod400 may be performed by theinsurance procurement system10 ofFIG. 1, the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, and/or by thecomputer system300 ofFIG. 2. For example, themethod400 may be performed by executing particular computer-executable instructions stored on theinsurance procurement system14. Indeed, themethod400 may operate in conjunction with theenvironment10, thesystem14, and/or thesystem34 illustrated inFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or any one or more portions of any one or more of the other methods described herein.

Themethod400 may include, for example, communicatively coupling a system (e.g., the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, theinsurance procurement system14, thecomputer system300, or another suitable system) to respective computing systems of a plurality of insurance providers (block402); particularly configuring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereon particular computer-executable instructions for initiating procurement of insurance based upon the completion of medical diagnostic examinations and/or the initial availability of corresponding examination results (block405); and/or executing, by one or more processors of the system, the particular computer-executable instructions (block408).

In one embodiment, the execution of the particular computer-executable instructions (block408) may cause the system to perform transmitting a health profile of a patient to one or more insurance provider computing systems (block410); receiving one or more insurance offers for one or more insurance policies for which the patient has been determined to be an eligible or approved insured party (block412); accepting, on behalf of the patient or consumer, one of the one or more insurance offers (block415); and/or providing an indication of the accepted insurance offer to the particular insurance provider computing system that generated the accepted insurance offer (block418), thereby entering into a contract for insurance on behalf of the consumer.

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein. For example, in some embodiments, the

blocks

405 and408 are at least partially omitted, for example, when one or more of the blocks410-418 are performed by hardware, firmware, and/or any other suitable means for implementing thehealth profiler unit20, theeligibility determiner unit21, theprovider selector unit22, thepolicy procurement unit24, and/or thenotification unit26.

Specifically, themethod400 may include communicatively coupling a system to respective computing systems of one or more insurance providers (block402). For example, the system may be theinsurance procurement system14 ofFIG. 1, and thesystem14 may be communicatively coupled to insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N. The system may be coupled to one or more insurance provider computing systems by using any number of any types of communication connections, e.g., direct connections, indirect or staged connections, wired, wireless, etc. In some embodiments, the system may be communicatively coupled to one or more insurance provider computing systems via one or more electronic or communications networks, e.g., wired communication networks, wireless communication networks, local networks, remote networks, public networks, private networks, secured networks, unsecured networks, etc. Typically, the system may include one or more network interfaces that are utilized for the communicative coupling. Further, the system may be communicatively coupled to different insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N via different network interfaces, connections, and/or networks.

In some embodiments, the system may be owned and/or operated by a medical diagnostic examination provider, and accordingly the system may be a medical diagnostic provider computing system (e.g., referring toFIG. 1, thesystem14 and thesystem34 may be an integral system). In other embodiments, the system may not be a medical diagnosticprovider computing system34, but nonetheless may be communicatively coupled to a medical diagnostic computing system (e.g., referring toFIG. 1, thesystem14 and the medicaldiagnostic computing system34 may be separate but communicatively coupled systems).

Themethod400 may include particularly configuring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereon particular computer-executable instructions for providing or initiating procurement of insurance based upon completion of medical diagnostic examinations (block405). Referring toFIG. 2 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, the particular computer-executable instructions may be included in theapplication programs335 stored on theRAM332 and/or in theapplication programs345 stored on thehard disk drive341, thereby particularly configuring thecomputing system300. The particular computer-executable instructions may have been downloaded or otherwise transferred to thecomputing system300, such as via anetwork interface370, thepersistent memory port351, or theoptical disk port355, for example.

Further, themethod400 may include executing, by one or more processors of the system, the particular computer-executable instructions (block408) that are stored in the system. The execution of the particular computer-executable instructions (block408) may cause the system to automatically initiate the provision or procurement of insurance based upon the completion of medical diagnostic examinations and/or the initial availability and/or storage of examination results, e.g., into theexamination results database30. For example, a medical diagnostic examination may be performed on a patient by a medical diagnostic provider, a physician or other medical professional, a medical diagnostic laboratory, or the like, and at least some of the results of the performed examination may be stored intoexamination results database30. Typically, the medical diagnostic examination may include at least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw and analysis. A health profile of the patient may be determined based upon at least some of the results of the performed examination. Indeed, in one embodiment, themethod400 may include determining the health profile of the patient based upon at least part of the results of the performed medical diagnostic examination (not shown inFIG. 3).

In some embodiments of the method400 (not shown), themethod400 may include causing the storing of at least some of the results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination (or portions thereof) at the system, e.g., in the examination resultsdata storage device30. For example, if the system is acomputing system34 of the medical diagnostic provider performing the examination of the patient, the results of the patient's examination may be directly entered and stored into theexamination database30 as the results are determined (that is, theexamination database30 stores original examination results or source copies thereof). On the other hand, if the system is not a medical diagnosticprovider computing system34, but is communicatively coupled to acomputing system34 of the medical diagnostic provider that performed the examination of the patient, the system may receive the patient's examination results or portions thereof from the medical diagnosticprovider computing system34, and upon the receipt of the results at the system, the system may store the patient's examination results or portions thereof into the examination database30 (that is, theexamination database30 may store duplicate or shadow copies of examination results or portions thereof). At any rate, in some embodiments of the method400 (not shown), the storage of the patient's medical diagnostic examination results in theexamination database30 may trigger or initiate the system to generate the patient's health profile. For example, the system may aggregate, average, and/or otherwise combine data from the stored, medical diagnostic exam results of the patient to generate the patient's health profile.

In one embodiment, themethod400 may include auctioning a health profile of a patient to procure insurance. The auctioning of the patient's health profile may be similar to the auctioning process described in the aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596 (which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), in one embodiment. For example, auctioning the health profile of the patient may include transmitting or providing the health profile of the patient to recipient insurance provider computing systems included in the plurality of insurance provider computing systems to which the system is communicatively coupled (block410). The transmission of the health profile of the patient may be performed based upon an indication that the patient or consumer has assented to doing so. For example, an affirmative assent of the patient or consumer may include an indication of permission to release the patient's medical information, and/or a waiver of privacy to the patient's medical information. In some scenarios, the assent of the patient or consumer (or of his or her agent) may be obtained a priori, e.g., when the patient undergoes his or her medical diagnostic examination or at some time prior to the availability of the examination results. An indication of the granted permission and/or waiver may be stored at the system or otherwise indicated to the system.

In some embodiments (not illustrated), prior to transmitting the health profile of the patient thereto (block410), themethod400 may include determining or selecting recipient insurance provider computing systems. Referring toFIG. 1 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, thesystem14 may determine or select which of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N is or are to receive the patient's health profile, e.g., for bidding purposes. The determination or selection of recipient insurance provider computing systems may be based upon, for example, one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements indicated by the consumer or patient, one or more characteristics of the insurance providers1-N (e.g., as indicated by the provider database32), an availability of each of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N, and/or other criteria.

Auctioning the patient's health profile (such as via an online auction, or other auction implemented via an electronics or communications network or via wired or wireless data transmission) may include receiving one or more insurance offers (block412), e.g., from one or more of the recipient insurance provider systems. The one or more insurance offers may correspond to one or more insurance policies for one or more types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party (e.g., life, health, disability, etc.), and the responding recipient insurance provider computing systems may have determined that the patient is an eligible and/or approved insured party of each of the one or more insurance policies, e.g., based upon the contents of the patient's health profile. As such, the one or more insurance offers may be binding quotes or binding offers for insurance, rather than mere estimates or non-binding quotes or offers.

In some cases, the one or more insurance offers may have been determined by the responding recipient insurance provider computing systems based additionally upon one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements, e.g., as indicated by the patient or consumer, by the system, and/or by the respective, responding insurance provider computing system. For example, an indication of one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements of the patient or consumer may have been transmitted with the patient's health profile to the plurality of insurance provider computing systems (block410), and at least one of the responding insurance provider computing systems may have generated one or more insurance offers based upon both the patient's health profile and the received insurance preferences and/or requirements.

Moreover, the initial generation of one or more insurance offers for the patient or consumer at respective insurance provider computing systems may have been initially triggered by the reception of the patient's health profile (and optionally of indicated insurance preferences and/or requirements) at the respective insurance provider computing systems, so that the one or more insurance offers are initial sets of insurance offers that are generated by the respective insurance provider computing systems for the patient. For example, a specific responding insurance provider computing system may not initiate or begin generating an insurance offer for the patient or consumer until the patient's health profile is received at the specific responding insurance provider computing system from the system (e.g., from theinsurance procurement system14 or from the computing system300). That is, the respective insurance provider computing system does not receive (from thesystem14, thesystem300, any other system, or any user interface) any partial personal information corresponding to the patient and relating to the generation of the one or more insurance offers prior to receiving the patient's health profile from the system (e.g., from thesystem14 or the system300). Indeed, in some cases, the patient's health profile may be the only indication of a quality of health of the patient that is received by the respective insurance provider computing system corresponding to the offers for insurance, and/or the one or more insurance offers may be generated from the only indication of the patient's quality of health.

Auctioning the patient's health profile may include comparing the received plurality of insurance offers (not shown). For example, the system may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based upon one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient or consumer, and/or optionally based upon a prioritization of the preferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient or consumer. If the patient or consumer has not indicated any insurance preferences and/or requirements, the system may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based upon one or more default criteria, e.g., the lowest monthly premium amount.

Auctioning the patient's health profile may include accepting, on behalf of the patient or consumer, one of the received plurality of insurance offers (block415). For example, the system may receive an indication of the consumer's preferences, requirements, and/or priorities of one or more insurance characteristics, and the system may automatically select the one of the plurality of insurance offers that best meets the preferences, requirements and/or priorities of the consumer (or alternatively, that best meets the one or more default criteria). The system may automatically accept the selected insurance offer on behalf of the consumer, for example, when permission or authorization for the system to automatically select and/or accept insurance offers has been granted by the consumer or his or her agent a priori.

In one embodiment, permission or authorization for the system to automatically select and/or accept a suitable insurance offer on behalf of the consumer may have been provided by the consumer, for example, in conjunction with the consumer granting permission to release his or her medical information, and/or with providing a waiver of privacy to the patient's medical information. In some scenarios, the permission or authorization for selecting and/or accepting an insurance offer on behalf of the consumer or patient may be obtained when the patient undergoes his or her medical diagnostic examination, and/or an indication of the granted permission or authorization may be stored at the system or otherwise indicated to the system.

At ablock418, themethod400 may include providing, by the system, an indication of the selected insurance offer to the particular insurance provider computing system from which the offer was received, thereby entering into a contract for insurance on behalf of the patient or consumer. The receipt of the indication of the selected offer may cause the particular insurance provider computing system to initiate binding of the insurance offer, for example.

In one embodiment, after binding has been completed, the particular insurance computing system may return to the system an indication that the selected insurance offer has been bound (not shown). Upon reception of the indication, the system may cause the patient or consumer to be informed that the insurance offer has been bound, and therefore his or her insurance policy is established or in-force. For example, the system may cause an indication that the insurance offer has been bound to be presented to the consumer, e.g., at thecomputing device12 or other user interface. Additionally or alternatively, the system may cause an indication of the bound insurance to be stored, e.g., in theprovider database32 or in some other data storage entity that is included in, accessible to, and/or communicatively connected to the insurance procurement system.

In some embodiments (not shown), upon reception of the indication that the insurance offer has been bound, the system may cause at least a portion of the cost of performing the medical diagnostic examination to be reimbursed. For example, the system may cause the generation of a refund of at least a portion of the cost of the examination, or the system may cause a credit corresponding to at least a portion of the cost of the examination to be credited towards a future premium of the insurance policy.

While themethod400 has been described above with respect to a particular patient's health profile, this is only one of many embodiments. For example, a particular patient's health profile may be grouped with the health profiles of other patients, and the group of health profiles may be auctioned to various insurance providers and at least some of the insurance providers may return one or more bids for the group of health profiles, e.g., in a manner such as described in aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596 (which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety). Indeed, any one or more of the techniques described herein for initiating the procurement of insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations may operate in conjunction with one or more aspects of U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, if desired.

V. Exemplary Method for Providing or Initiating Procurement of Insurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary computer-implementedmethod450 of automatically providing or procuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations, e.g. based upon their completion and/or on the initial availability of their results. That is,FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary computer-implementedmethod450 of providing insurance triggered by medical diagnostic examinations, e.g. via an electronic or communications network. In one embodiment, at least a portion of themethod450 may be performed by theinsurance procurement system14 ofFIG. 1, the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, and/or by thecomputer system300 ofFIG. 2. In one exemplary embodiment, though, at least a portion of themethod450 may be performed by one or more of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 to16-N ofFIG. 1. For example, themethod450 may be performed by executing particular computer-executable instructions stored on the one or more of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 to16-N. Indeed, themethod450 may operate in conjunction with theenvironment10, thesystem14, and/or thesystem34 illustrated inFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or any one or more portions of the other methods described herein.

Themethod450 may include, in one embodiment, receiving a health profile of a patient, customer, or consumer (block452), where the health profile has been generated based upon at least a portion of the results of a medical diagnostic examination performed on the patient; triggering, based upon the contents of the patient's health profile, the generation of one or more binding insurance offers or binding quotes for insurance policies for which the patient is an eligible and/or approvedparty455; providing, an indication of the one or more binding quotes forinsurance458; receiving an indication that one of the binding quotes for insurance has been selected460; and/or binding the selectedinsurance quote462. The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

For example, in one embodiment, at least portions of themethod450 may be performed by one or more of the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N. As such, in this embodiment, themethod450 may include communicatively coupling the system16-x(e.g., one or more of the systems16-1 to16-N) to an insurance procurement system (block465), such as theinsurance procurement system14 ofFIG. 1. The system16-xmay be coupled to the insurance procurement system by using any number of any types of electronic or communication connections, e.g., direct connections, indirect or staged connections, wired, wireless, etc. In some embodiments, the system16-xmay be communicatively coupled to the insurance procurement system via one or more electronic or communications networks, e.g., wired communication networks, wireless communication networks, local networks, remote networks, public networks, private networks, secured networks, unsecured networks, etc. Typically, the system16-xmay include one or more network interfaces that are utilized for the communicative coupling. Further, the system16-xmay be communicatively coupled to one or more medicaldiagnostic provider system34, such as when theinsurance procurement system14 and the medicaldiagnostic provider system34 are an integral system.

In one embodiment, themethod450 may include particularly configuring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system16-xby storing thereon particular computer-executable instructions for procuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations (block468). Referring toFIG. 2 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, the particular computer-executable instructions may be included in theapplication programs335 stored on theRAM332 and/or in theapplication programs345 stored on thehard disk drive341, thereby particularly configuring thecomputing system300. The particular computer-executable instructions may have been downloaded or otherwise transferred to thecomputing system300, such as via anetwork interface370, thepersistent memory port351, or theoptical disk port355, for example.

Themethod450 may include executing, by one or more processors of the system16-x, the particular computer-executable instructions (block470), e.g., the instructions stored in and particularly configuring the system16-x. The execution of the particular computer-executable instructions (block470) may cause automatic procurement of insurance based upon the availability of medical diagnostic examination results. For example, the execution of the particular computer-executable instructions may cause the system16-xto perform one or more of the blocks452-462 of themethod450, and/or optionally one or more other steps. In some embodiments, theblock468 and/or theblock470 are at least partially omitted, such as when at least a portion of at least some of the blocks452-462 are performed by hardware and/or firmware.

Turning to block452, in one embodiment, themethod450 may include receiving a health profile of a patient, consumer, customer, or subject on which a medical diagnostic examination has been performed, e.g., by a medical diagnostic provider, a physician or other medical professional, a medical diagnostic laboratory, or the like (block452). As previously discussed, typically, the medical diagnostic examination may have included at least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw and analysis, and in some scenarios, the medical diagnostic examination may have been performed as part of the patient's annual physical examination. Some or all of the examination results may have been used to determine and/or generate the received health profile, e.g., as previously discussed above.

For example, at least a portion of the results of the medical diagnostic examination of the patient may have been received by theinsurance procurement system14, theinsurance procurement system14 may have generated the health profile therefrom, and the health profile may have been received at the insurance provider system16-xfrom the insurance procurement system14 (e.g., via a network interface coupling the insurance provider system16-xto an electronic or communications network and the insurance procurement system14). In one embodiment, the patient's health profile is received (block452) as part of an auction, e.g., as part of an online auction performed by thesystem14, such as previously described, and as such, the insurance provider system receiving the patient's health profile (block452) is one of a plurality of insurance provider systems to which the patient's health profile may be provided. In another example, the patient's health profile may be received by the insurance provider system16-xfrom the medical diagnosticprovider computing system34.

Upon receiving the patient's health profile (block452), themethod450 may include triggering, based upon the contents of the health profile, the initial generation of one or more binding quotes for one or more insurance policies for which the patient is eligible to be an insured party (block455), where the one or more insurance policies are one or more types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance, long-term care insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, etc. For example, one or more processors of the insurance provider system16-xmay trigger the initial generation of the one or more binding quotes based upon the contents of health profile of the patient. The binding quotes whose generation is triggered at theblock455 are initial or first quotes generated by the insurance provider system16-xfor the patient, as the generated binding quotes are the first, initial, or only estimates or quotes for insurance that are generated by the recipient insurance provider computing device16-xbased upon the particular patient examination results that have been received (block452). That is, prior to the execution of theblock458, no other estimates, ball-park quotes, non-binding quotes, and/or binding quotes for insurance have been generated by the recipient insurance provider system16-xbased upon the received health profile, or indeed, based upon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results from which the patient's health profile was generated.

Furthermore, with regard to the recipient insurance provider system16-x, the health profile of the patient may be the only received indication of a quality of a health of the patient corresponding to the one or more binding quotes. For example, none of the binding quotes are generated at theblock455 based upon any information corresponding to the patient and received at the recipient insurance provider system prior to the receipt of the patient's health profile.

In one embodiment, triggering the initial generation of the one or more binding quotes (block455) may include generating at least one of the one or more binding quotes, where the one or more binding quotes are an initial and only set of quotes for insurance that are generated for the patient. Furthermore, in some cases, the one or more initial binding quotes may be generated based additionally upon one or more insurance policy term/parameter preferences and/or requirements, e.g., as indicated by the patient or consumer, an agent of the patient or consumer, and/or as indicated by one or more of the

systems

34,14 and/or16-x. For example, an indication of one or more insurance term/parameter preferences and/or requirements of the patient or consumer may have been received in conjunction with the patient's health profile (block452). The one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements of the patient or consumer may include, for example, one or more preferred insurance policy terms such as an amount of a premium payment, a length of term, a type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, and/or another insurance policy term or parameter.

In one embodiment, themethod450 may include providing an indication of one or more of the generated binding quotes (block458) to another computing system, to one or more user interfaces, to a database or data storage entity (e.g., the data storage entity32), etc. For example, the insurance provider system16-xmay provide an indication of one or more of the generated binding quotes to the recipient computing system(s) and/or user interfaces via the network interface coupling the insurance provider system16-xto the electronic or communications network. In one embodiment, if more than one binding quote was generated (block455), an indication of each generated binding quote may be provided (block458).

Additionally, themethod450 may include receiving an indication that one of the generated binding quotes has been selected (block460). For example, one of the plurality of binding quotes may have been automatically been selected by theinsurance procurement system14 as part of an auction, or the patient or patient's agent may have selected one of the plurality of binding quotes. For example, the indication of the binding quote selection may be received at the insurance provider system16-xvia the network interface and the electronic or communications network from a computing system or user interface to which the plurality of binding quotes was provided (block458).

At ablock462, themethod450 may include binding the selected insurance quote, where the bound, selected binding quote is for a particular insurance policy for which the patient is named as an insured party. For example, the one or processors of the insurance provider system16-xmay bind the selected insurance quote, thereby procuring insurance and/or establishing an in-force insurance policy for the patient. Binding the insurance quote (block462) may include entering into a contract for insurance with the patient or consumer. The selected insurance offer may be automatically bound on behalf of the patient or consumer, for example, when permission or authorization for the system to automatically select and/or accept insurance offers has been granted by the patient or consumer. Typically, the consumer's permission or authorization has been provided a priori, e.g., in a manner such as previously discussed.

In one embodiment, themethod450 may include causing underwriting to be performed on one or more binding quotes. For example, generating the one or more binding quotes (block455) may include underwriting at least some of the one or more binding quotes, and/or binding the selected insurance quote (block462) may include causing underwriting to be performed on the selected binding quote. In one embodiment, the one or more processors of the insurance provider system16-xbecause the underwriting to be formed on the one or more binding quotes.

After binding has been completed (block462), themethod450 may include providing an indication that the selected insurance quote has been bound (not shown), e.g., to the system from which the patient's health profile was received, to one or more user interfaces, to a database or data storage entity (e.g., the data storage entity32), etc. via the network interface and the electronic or communications network. Upon reception of the indication, the entity receiving the indication of the bound insurance policy may cause the patient or consumer to be informed that the insurance offer has been bound, and that a contract for insurance has been entered into on behalf of the patient or consumer. For example, the receiving entity may cause an indication that the insurance offer has been bound to be presented to the consumer, e.g., at thecomputing device12 or other user interface.

In some embodiments, upon reception of the indication that the insurance offer has been bound, the receiving entity may cause at least a portion of the cost of performing the medical diagnostic examination to be reimbursed. For example, the receiving entity may cause the generation of a refund of at least a portion of the cost of the examination, or the receiving entity may cause a credit corresponding to at least a portion of the cost of the examination to be credited towards a future premium of the insurance policy.

While themethod450 has been described above with respect to a particular patient's health profile, this is only one of many embodiments. For example, a particular patient's health profile may be grouped with the health profiles of other patients, and the group of health profiles may be received at an insurance provider system16-xas part of an auctioning process, in which more than one insurance provider returns one or more bids for the group of health profiles, e.g., in a manner such as described in aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596. Indeed, any one or more of the techniques described herein for initiating the procurement of insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations may operate in conjunction with one or more aspects of U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, if desired.

VI. Exemplary Insurance-Based Embodiments

To solve the problem of requiring the customer submit partial personal information without knowing if he or she is actually medically eligible for an insurance policy, an insurance provider may start a subsidiary or partner with a firm that specializes in medical diagnostics, e.g., a medical diagnostic provider or medical diagnostic laboratory (MDL). In this case, the customer who is looking for insurance coverage may make an appointment with the medical diagnostic provider or lab to conduct the diagnostic examination to determine the customer's health profile or present health. The customer may use cash, credit or a debit card, or any other form of payment to cover the cost of the medical diagnostic exam. After the results of the exam are completed and available, the subsidiary or partner, acting on the customer's behalf (and with the customer's permission), may initiate an online or other auction with insurance carriers to find the carrier that may offer the customer, based upon the customer's medical diagnostic exam results, the best premium payment or other feature(s) to meet the customer's insurance need. After the insurance policy is booked, the insurance carrier may either refund the customer for the price of the medical diagnostic exam or credit this amount towards the customer's first insurance premium payment.

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of providing or procuring insurance (e.g., a bound insurance product) to an on-line customer500. Themethod500 may be utilized for providing or procuring insurance via an electronic or communications network and based upon customers' medical diagnostic examinations, for example. One or more portions of themethod500 may operate in conjunction with the

systems

14,34, and/or16-1 to16N ofFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods described herein. For example, at least a portion of themethod500 may be executed by one or more processors of theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks. Additionally or alternatively, at least a portion of themethod500 may be executed by one or more processes of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks.

It is noted that although themethod500 is discussed below with simultaneous reference toFIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease of discussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, themethod500 may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to other types of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liability insurance, etc.

Themethod500 may include receiving an indication that a customer is interested in purchasinginsurance502; setting up an appointment for the customer with the medical diagnostic provider for a medicaldiagnostic exam504; receiving payment from the customer for the medicaldiagnostic exam506; receiving and analyzing results from the medical diagnostic exam with the customer'sconsent508; generating one or more binding quotes for insurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic exam results510; transmitting the one or more binding quotes for insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptance and/or selection of a quote or winningbid512; and/or refunding the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer upon purchase of theinsurance product514. The method may include additional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussed herein, and/or may be implemented via one or more processors or servers (such as processors or servers associated with insurance providers, medical diagnostic providers, customers (such as customer mobile devices), insurance lead aggregators, and/or others), electronic or communications networks, and/or computer-executable instructions stored on non-transitory, computer-readable media or medium. In one embodiment, a system provides a client application that executes on a customer'sdevice12, and the client application and the system operate in conjunction to perform the method.

Themethod500 may include receiving an indication that an on-line customer is interested in purchasinginsurance502. For instance, medical diagnostic provider or insurance provider remote server may receive an electronic indication that a customer is interested in insurance, such as receiving a transmission or request for information from a website and/or via the customer's mobile device orother computing device12. The insurance may be of any type or types of insurance that requires a potential insured party to undergo a medical diagnostic examination, the results of which are used to determine insurance policy terms. Examples of such types of insurance include insurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance, health insurance, etc.

In one embodiment, upon receiving the indication from thecustomer502, the system may cause a client application to be downloaded to aclient computing device12, and the client application executes in conjunction with the system to procure insurance for the customer. In another embodiment, theclient computing device12 executes a web-browser or web-based application that executes in conjunction with the system to procure insurance for the customer.

Themethod500 may include setting up or scheduling an appointment for the customer with the medical diagnostic provider for a medicaldiagnostic exam504. For instance, the processors of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34 and/or theinsurance provider system14 may check available time slots for a medical diagnostic exam appointment, and provide one or more options (or exam time slots) for the customer to accept, such as accept via theirmobile device12.

Themethod500 may include receiving payment from the customer for the medicaldiagnostic exam506. For instance, electronic payment for the medical diagnostic exam may be received via payment from a credit card or checking account over the Internet or other wired or wireless communication networks.

Themethod500 may include receiving and analyzing results from the medical diagnostic exam with the customer'sconsent508. For example, after the customer provides affirmative consent to release his or her medical information, the medical diagnostic exam results of a portion thereof may be received, e.g. via one or more electronic or communications networks by one or more processors (or servers) from the medicaldiagnostic provider system34. Upon receipt of the customer's medical diagnostic examination results, one or more processors associated with the medicaldiagnostic provider34, theinsurance procurement system14, and/or the insurance provider(s)16-1 to16-N may analyze the received results. In one embodiment, a health profile of the customer may be generated from the analysis of the customer's exam results.

Themethod500 may include generating one or more binding quotes for insurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic exam results510. In one embodiment, a single insurance provider may analyze the medical diagnostic exam results and generate a binding quote for life and/or other types of insurance for the customer. In another embodiment, the system (e.g. the medicaldiagnostic system34 and/or the insurance procurement system14) may generate a health profile of the customer, and the health profile may be provided to numerous insurance providers.

Subsequently, the system (e.g., the medicaldiagnostic system34 or the insurance procurement system14) may receive several binding quotes from the numerous insurance providers. For example, an online auction of the opportunity to provide insurance to the customer (which may result in several binding quotes, or even a single winning quote), may be performed electronically via wired or wireless communication and/or data transmission, e.g., by transmitting the customer's health profile and/or at least a portion of the customer's medical diagnostic exam results to various insurance provider system16-1 to16-N. In one embodiment, generating the one or more binding quotes for insurance may include generating the quotes based upon one or more preferred insurance policy terms, such as an amount of a premium payment, a term length, an insurance provider rating, a desired type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlement option, or one or more other insurance policy terms. At least one of the preferred insurance policy terms may be indicated by or received from the customer, for example, e.g., from his or hermobile computing device12.

Themethod500 may include transmitting the one or more binding quotes for insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptance and/or selection of a quote or winningbid512. For instance, the binding quote or quotes may be transmitted to a client application or a browser application executing on the customer'smobile device12 via one or more electronic indications networks. The customer may then accept one of the binding quotes to have a bound insurance product provided by the insurance provider, and as such, themethod500 may include receiving, from the customer'smobile device12, an indication of an acceptance and/or a selection of a particular binding quote.

Themethod500 may include, upon a purchase of insurance product corresponding to the particular binding quote, electronically refunding at least a portion of the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer upon purchase of the insurance product, electronically crediting an account of the customer, and/or providing a discount to the customer (reference514). For instance, the insurance provider system16-1 to16-N, theinsurance procurement system14, and/or the medicaldiagnostic provider system34 may electronically refund the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer's bank or credit card account after the customer has purchased a bound insurance product.

In one embodiment, themethod500 may further include transmitting an indication that an insurance policy corresponding to the particular binding quote has been bound (not shown), and as such the procured insurance policy has been established or is in-force. For example, such an indication may be transmitted to the customer'smobile device12 via one or more electronic or communications networks.

VII. Additional Insurance-Based Embodiments

FIG. 6 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of providing insurance to acustomer600. Themethod600 may be utilized for procuring insurance via an electronic or communications network and based upon customers' medical diagnostic examinations, for example. One or more portions of themethod600 may operate in conjunction with the

systems

14,34, and/or16-1 to16N ofFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods described herein. For example, at least a portion of themethod600 may be executed by one or more processors of theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks. Additionally or alternatively, at least a portion of themethod600 may be executed by one or more processes of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, e.g., by using one or more electronic communications networks. It is noted that although themethod600 is discussed below with simultaneous reference toFIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease of discussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, themethod600 may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to other types of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liability insurance, etc.

Themethod600 may include receiving an indication that a customer is interested in having a medical diagnostic exam and/or receiving payment for the medical diagnostic exam from thecustomer604. For instance, customer may schedule a medical diagnostic exam and/or provide online payment for the medical diagnostic exam via the internet and a medical diagnostic provider website, and/or by downloading a client application onto his or hercomputing device12, and via which a medical diagnostic examination may be scheduled and payment may be received.

After the medical diagnostic exam has been scheduled, themethod600 may include pushing, sending, or transmitting a notice of the opportunity to receive an insurance offer based upon the medical diagnostic exam results, such as sending the notice to the customer's account associated with the customer's medical diagnostic provider, or directly to their mobile device604 (e.g., to a web-browser or client application executing on their mobile device12). Along with the notice, customer consent may be requested for third party (e.g., insurance provider) analysis of the medical diagnostic exam results to generate personalized insurance offers.

Themethod600 may include receiving consent from the customer for third party analysis of the medicaldiagnostic exam606. For instance, consent from the customer may be transmitted from their mobile device to an insurance provider or medical diagnostic provider remote server or processor via wireless communication and/or data transmission.

Themethod600 may include receiving and analyzing results from the medical diagnostic exam with the customer'sconsent608. The medical diagnostic exam results may be analyzed for various items, such as those discussed elsewhere herein.

Themethod600 may include generating one or more binding quotes for insurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic exam results610. For instance, a binding quote may be generated from a single insurance provider. Additionally or alternatively, several insurance providers may participate in an online auction, and/or otherwise each insurance provider may provide one or more binding offers for insurance based upon the medical diagnostic exam results.

Themethod600 may include transmitting the one or more binding quotes for insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptance and/or selection of a quote or winningbid612. For instance, the customer may be able to view several binding quotes via the mobile device, or a 3^rdparty may select winning quote and send the winning quote to the mobile device of the customer for the customer's review and rejection/approval.

Themethod600 may include refunding the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer upon purchase of theinsurance product614. For instance, the cost of the medical diagnostic exam may transferred to the customer's bank or credit card account, or may be deducted from the cost of the insurance product.

VIII. Exemplary Computer-Implemented Method

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary computer-implementedmethod700. Themethod700 may be utilized for procuring insurance via an electronic or communications network and based upon consumers' or customers' medical diagnostic examinations, for example. One or more portions of themethod700 may operate in conjunction with the

systems

14,34, and/or16-1 to16N ofFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods described herein. For example, at least a portion of themethod700 may be executed by one or more processors of theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks. Additionally or alternatively, at least a portion of themethod700 may be executed by one or more processes of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, e.g., by using one or more electronic communications networks.

It is noted that although themethod700 is discussed below with simultaneous reference toFIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease of discussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, themethod700 may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to other types of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liability insurance, etc.

Themethod700 may include, via one or more processors, computing devices, or servers: with customers' permission or consent, analyzing insurance customers (e.g., existing or potential insurance customers) by health characteristics and/orinsurance policy preferences702; dividing and/or classifying insurance customers into groups or segments based upon the health characteristics and/orinsurance preferences704; auctioning or offering for sale the opportunity to provide medical diagnostic-related insurance to one or more of the customer groups orsegments706; receiving and comparing one ormore bids708; accepting one or more winningbids709; notifying insurance customers of new insurance policies and/or of changes to existing insurance policies, premiums, discounts, etc.710; automatically detecting events that may impact a risk associated with, or the health of, a customer, or otherwise monitoring a customer's health with theirconsent712; updating the customer's health profile or risk score based upon the detectedevent714; and/or updating the customer' insurance group and/or moving the customer to anew insurance group716. After a number of customers have been moved to new or different risk insurance groups, another auction of the new or updated groups may be held706, the process may continue708,710,712,714,716, etc. The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In particular, themethod700 may include, via one or more processors, computing devices, or servers, analyzing insurance customers by their health characteristics and/orinsurance policy preferences702. The analysis of customers may be by insurance policy preferences, such as by insurance coverages, deductibles, and/or limits typically desired or requested by an individual customer. For instance, a group of insurance customers may prefer to have: $500,000 (or other amounts) of coverage for various life or health insurance policies; certain types of coverages and/or insurance; certain levels of deductibles; premiums under $500 per month; etc. Thus, groups of similarly minded customers may be grouped together based upon similar coverages, deductibles, and/or limits that they may typically prefer for various types of insurance. Additionally or alternatively, groups of similarly minded customers may be grouped together based upon similar customer health characteristics.

In one embodiment, customer health characteristics may be analyzed702 after customers have given their affirmative consent or permission to release medical information, and subsequently the customers' medical diagnostic examination results (or portions thereof) may be analyzed to determine respective health characteristics. Characteristics that may be analyzed by the one or more processors may include customer risk, risk scores, age, status (such as married or single), occupation, geographical location, life style, drinking or smoking habits, body mass index, blood pressure level, chronic conditions, medications, etc.

One or more processors may access a database, customer examination results, and/or customer health profiles that are stored in one or more memory units to analyze the customer health characteristics and/or customer insurance policy preferences. For example, a database storing customer health characteristics and/or customer insurance policy preferences may be accessible to theinsurance procurement system14, and/or to the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N. In some embodiments, each insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N may only access its own respective customer database.

In one embodiment, analyzing insurance customers byhealth characteristics702 may include analyzing health profiles of insurance customers which have been determined based upon results of respective medical diagnostic examinations that have been performed on the customers. For example, ahealth profiler unit20 may generate health profiles of customers based upon stored exam results in thedatabase30, and the generated health profiles may be analyzed (block702).

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, dividing and/or classifying insurance customers into groups orsegments704, e.g., based upon the results of theanalysis702. Based upon the analysis of customers mentioned above, such as computer analysis of customer health or life style characteristics and/or customer health-related insurance policy preferences, the customers may be divided into groups or segments of customers having similar characteristics or preferences. For example, multiple groups or segments of a set of customers may be determined based upon contents of health profiles of the set of customers, e.g., common range of particular health characteristics, omission of certain health conditions, etc. Various groups and/or segments of the set of customers may be determined additionally or alternatively based upon other criteria. For instance, one group or segment of insurance customers may be characterized as (1) low risk or having a risk score within a given range; (2) carrying out certain life styles (such as life styles involving little or no smoking or drinking, little travel; little dangerous activities (lack of sky diving, downhill skiing, scuba diving, etc.); (3) living within a given state, city, or zip code; (4) having one or more deductible preferences; (5) having one or more coverage preferences; (6) having one or more common characteristics (age, chronic conditions, occupation, etc.); and/or (7) other common factors.

In one embodiment, insurance customer groups, groupings, or segments may be additionally or alternatively defined by behavioral and attitudinal segmentation and/or customer criteria, such as occupation, risk characteristics, insurance claims expectations, insurance company ratings, driving behavior (e.g., as determined by telematics data), etc. Other customer groups may be defined, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, and via one or more electronic or communications networks, auctioning or offering for sale the opportunity to provide health-related insurance (e.g., life, burial, accidental death, health, etc.) to one or more of the customer groups orsegments706. In one embodiment, each group of insurance customers having common health characteristics and/or insurance policy preferences may be presented to potential bidders (e.g., insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N) via an electronic or online auction for the opportunity to provide insurance for the group of customers. For instance, the one or more processors, computing devices or servers may cause one or more insurance customer groups to be presented and/or offered for sale on remote display screens (such as via the Internet or a secure communications network), e.g., in conjunction with respective indications of their common or similar health characteristics and/or insurance preferences.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, receiving one ormore bids708, e.g., from at least some of the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N, and/or via one or more electronic or communications networks. Bidders for the various groups of similarly situated and/or like-minded insurance customers (such as grouped by low or medium risk life styles, insureds with the same preferences for deductibles or coverages, insureds having similar driving behaviors (as evidenced by telematics data), etc.) may submit their bids via remote computers, e.g., computers of the systems16-1 to16-N. The bids may be received by a processor or server associated with the entity running the auction via wireless or wired communication and/or data transmission, e.g., one or more processors of theinsurance procurement system14 or of the medicaldiagnostic provider system34.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, determining a winning bid from the set of received bids709. Determining the winningbid709 may include, for example, comparing the one or more bids against a set of pre-determined, prioritized criteria, such as premium cost, insurance provider rating, compatibility of the bid with the range of preferences specified by the group's customers, etc. In some embodiments, determining the winningbid709 may include accepting the winning bid and notifying the correspondinginsurance provider system16. If the winning bid includes a binding quote, insurance may thereby be automatically obtained or procured for (e.g., on behalf of) the customers included in the group, e.g., in a manner similar to as previously described above.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, notifying insurance customers of new life or health-related insurance policies, premiums, discounts, etc.710, e.g. by using one or more electronic and/or communications networks. After a winning bid has been determined or selected, new life or health-related insurance policies, rates, premiums, discounts, etc. may be determined or updated. New insurance policies and associated information may be communicated to the insureds that may be impacted by the auction, such as notified of reduced premiums and/or increased discounts (such as increased discounts for low risk driving behavior). The determination or selection of a winning bid may be performed by the customer (e.g. via his or her computing device12), and/or by the medicaldiagnostic system34 or theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., when the customer had given his or her previous consent for the

system

34 or14 to procure insurance on the customer's behalf. In some embodiments, a winning bid may result in a change to a customer's existing health-related policy. For example, a premium amount may be decreased, a coverage maximum may be increased, etc. In these situations, the customer may be notified of the changes to his or her existing insurance coverage (block710).

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, automatically detecting health-related events or other events that may impact a risk associated with a customer orcustomers712. Over time, risk associated with each customer may change. One customer may engage in low risk behavior, and/or not be involved with automobile accidents, and/or not report any insurance claims or any health issues. On the hand, other customer may be involved in a high number of automobile accidents and/or otherwise engage in risky driving behavior, or engage in high-risk activities (skiing, scuba diving, surfing, etc.). As a result, risk associated with various customers (or risk scores) may be lowered or increased over time based upon data analysis by one or more processors, such as by a processor associated with an insurance provider and/or medical diagnostic provider, and with the permission of the insured. For instance, insureds engaging in low-risk behavior may desire for their information to be analyzed by an insurance provider to achieve a discount on various insurance products. The data may by gathered by one or more processors, such as gathered from a customer profile and/or from third party sources, such as a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) or social media websites. Additionally or alternatively, the data may be telematics data that is gathered by a mobile device (e.g., smart phone) and/or a conventional telematics device that plugs into an electrical or computer system of a vehicle.

Additionally or alternatively, changes to customers' health profiles may also change over time, and may impact customers' risk scores. Changes to customers' health profiles may be determined or detected (block712), for example, by receiving an indication of updates and/or changes to the customer's health from the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, and/or by receiving input from thecustomer12.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, updating the customer's or customers' health profile orrisk score714. Based upon the data gathered and/or collected by one or more processors, each customer's health profile, risk profile, and/or risk score may be updated to reflect low or high-risk behavior. For instance, a customer's profile may reflect more recent customer preferences for various insurance policy coverages, deductibles, limits, etc. The customer profile may also be updated to reflect more recent customer preferences for various types of insurance or insurance products that the customer may be interested in, such as life, health, burial, auto, homeowners, or other insurance. As another example, a customer's risk score or profile for automobile insurance may be updated based upon a lack of accidents for a given period of time, and/or involvement in one or more vehicle accidents. The cause of the vehicle accidents may also be factored into the risk score or profile.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, updating the customer group or segment to which a customer belongs or is assigned, and/or moving or reassigning the customer to anew group716. For instance, based upon a customer's updated health profile and/or risk score, an individual customer may be moved, via one or more processors, to be associated with a new or different customer group or segment. Additionally or alternatively, based upon a customer's more recent preferences for insurance policy coverages, deductibles, or limits, and/or types of insurance products, an individual customer may be moved, by the one or more processors, to be associated with a new or different customer group or segment.

Themethod700 may include, via the one or more processors, computing devices or servers, after a number of customers have been moved to new or different risk-based groups, having or holding another auction of the new or updatedgroups706, and then theprocess700 may continue (as shown inFIG. 7). For instance, after a number of customers have been moved to a new or different group of insurance customers based upon their personal characteristics (education, marital status, age, driving record or history, etc.) and/or insurance policy preferences (new interest in life or health insurance, new interest in home owners insurance, changed policy deductibles or coverages, interest in using telematics devices and/or gathering telematics data, etc.), a new electronic or online auction of the new, or revised/updated group of insurance policies associated with those insurance customers for which personal characteristics and/or insurance policies have changed may be held, such as under the direction of one or more processors.

It is noted that while themethod700 above is described with respect to a group of insurance customers, most of the techniques therein may be easily applied to an individual insurance customer. For example, the health profile of an individual customer may be auctioned or offered for sale (block706), resulting bids may be compared (block708), a winning bid may be selected (block709), and the individual customer may be notified of a change to an existing policy or a possible new insurance policy (block710). Similarly, changes to the health condition, other characteristics, and/or other preferences of the individual customer may be detected or determined (block712), and the risk score and/or health profile of the individual customer may be updated based upon the changes (block714). Based upon the updated risk score and/or health profile of individual customer, his or her existing insurance policy may be updated or a new policy may be established (block716), e.g. by utilizing an auctioning technique (

blocks

706,708,709).

IX. Exemplary Method for Initiating Procurement of Insurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary computer-implementedmethod800 of providing insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations, e.g., via an electronic or communications network. That is,FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary computer-implemented method for initiating offers for insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations. In one embodiment, at least a portion of themethod800 may be performed using theinsurance procurement system14 ofFIG. 1 and/or by thecomputer system300 ofFIG. 2. For example, at least a portion of themethod800 may be performed by one or more of thehealth profiler unit20, theeligibility determiner unit21, theprovider selector unit22, thepolicy procurement unit24, and/or thenotification unit26. Indeed, one or more portions of themethod800 may operate in conjunction with the

systems

14,34, and/or16-1 to16N ofFIG. 1, thesystem300 ofFIG. 2, and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods described herein.

It is noted that although themethod800 is discussed below with simultaneous reference toFIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease of discussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, themethod800 may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to other types of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liability insurance, etc.

Themethod800 may include, in one embodiment, storing respective sets of results (or portions thereof) of medical diagnostic examinations that have been performed on one or more patients or subjects by one or more medical diagnostic providers (block802). For example, the examination results may be stored at the medicaldiagnostic provider system34 and/or at theinsurance procurement system14, e.g., in theexamination results database30. Themethod800 may also include particularly configuring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system storing thereon particular computer-executable instructions for initiating the procurement of insurance offers based upon medical diagnostic examinations and/or based upon their results (block805); and/or executing, by one or more processors of the system, the particular computer-executable instructions (block808).

The execution of the particular computer-executable instructions808 may cause the system, with the customer's permission, to obtain a set of stored medical diagnostic examination results of a patient, customer, or consumer (block810), where the results were generated from a medical diagnostic examination that was performed on the patient; determine or generate a health profile of the patient on which the examination was performed (block812); and/or determine, based upon the contents of the health profile of the patient, whether or not the patient is eligible for one or more offers for one or more types of insurance that require medical diagnostic examinations to be performed on applicants or on potential insured parties (block815). At theblock815, when or if the patient or subject is determined as being ineligible for one or more offers of insurance, themethod800 returns to theblock810, e.g., so that another patient's medical diagnostic examination results may be analyzed. However, at theblock815, when or if the patient is determined as being eligible for one or more offers for insurance, themethod800 may include providing or transmitting the patient's health profile to one or more insurance provider computing systems (block818); receiving, in response to the transmission of health profile, one or more insurance offers comprising one or more binding quotes for one or more insurance policies for which the patient has been determined to be an eligible or approved insured party (block820); and/or providing an indication of the one or more binding quotes to a user, thereby providing the one or more offers for the one or more types of insurance (block822).

blocks

805 and808 are at least partially omitted, for example, when one or more of the blocks810-822 are performed by hardware, firmware, and/or any other suitable means for implementing thehealth profiler unit20, theeligibility determiner unit21, theprovider selector unit22, thepolicy procurement unit24, and/or thenotification unit26.

Specifically, at theblock802, themethod800 may include storing one or more sets of results of medical diagnostic examinations that have been performed on respective patients or respective subjects by one or more medical diagnostic providers. As previously discussed, typically, the medical diagnostic examinations may have been performed on patients by one or more medical diagnostic providers, physicians or other medical professionals, medical diagnostic laboratories, and/or the like. Typically, each of the medical diagnostic examinations may have included at least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw and analysis, and in some scenarios, the medical examination may have performed as part of the patient's annual physical examination. The sets of medical examination results may be stored at the medical diagnosticprovider computing system34, for example. Additionally or alternatively, at least some of the sets of examination results (or copies thereof) may be stored (block802) in theexamination database30 ofFIG. 1, and the data or information stored therein may be accessible or otherwise made available to theinsurance procurement system14.

Themethod800 may also include particularly configuring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereon particular computer-executable instructions for initiating procurement of insurance offers based upon medical diagnostic examinations and/or their results (block805). Referring toFIG. 2 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, the particular computer-executable instructions may be included in theapplication programs335 stored on theRAM332 and/or in theapplication programs345 stored on thehard disk drive341, thereby particularly configuring thecomputing system300. The particular computer-executable instructions may have been downloaded or otherwise transferred to thecomputing system300, such as via anetwork interface370, thepersistent memory port351, or theoptical disk port355, for example.

Further, themethod800 may include executing, by one or more processors of the system, the particular computer-executable instructions stored in the therein (block808). In one embodiment, the execution of the particular computer-executable instructions808 may cause the system to automatically initiate the procurement of insurance offers based upon medical diagnostic examination results. For example, the execution of the particular computer-executable instructions808 may cause one or more of blocks810-822 to be executed. As previously discussed, though, in some embodiments of themethod800, at least part of theblocks805 and/or808 are omitted, and in some embodiments, themethod800 includes additional blocks that are not shown.

At any rate, themethod800 may include obtaining one or more stored sets of examination results (block810) by using any suitable manner or technique. For example, the initial storing or writing of examination results into medical records data storage (block802) may cause thesystem14 to be notified of the newly added records, thus prompting thesystem14 to access the newly added records. In another example, thesystem14 may obtain a shadow copy of at least some of the records that are stored in a master medical records database, e.g., by automatic receipt or explicit request. In still another example, thesystem14 may periodically and/or on-demand request or access the master medical records database for newly stored results, etc.

At ablock812, themethod800 may include determining or generating, for a particular obtained set of medical diagnostic examination results, a corresponding health profile of the respective patient, consumer, customer, or subject on which the examination was performed. As previously discussed, the contents of a health profile typically includes a subset of data extracted or generated based upon the data and/or information stored in the respective set of medical diagnostic examination results. For example, data included in the respective set of medical diagnostic examination results may be aggregated, average, and/or otherwise combined to generate the patient's health profile. The patient's health profile may be generated by a medicaldiagnostic provider system34 or by aninsurance procurement system14 based upon the patient's stored examination results, for example.

Additionally, themethod800 may include determining, based upon the health profile of the respective patient or subject, whether or not the patient or subject is eligible for one or more offers for one or more types of insurance that require medical diagnostic examinations to be performed on applicants or potential insured parties, such as health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, etc. (block815). In one embodiment, the determination may be made additionally based upon information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria provided by each of the insurance providers16-1 to16-N, indications of which may be stored in theprovider database32. Additionally or alternatively, the determination may be made based upon information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria that are provided by the medical diagnostic provider and/or by the insurance procurer. If or when the patient is determined to be ineligible for one or more offers of insurance, themethod800 may return to theblock810 to obtain another set of examination results of another patient. In some embodiments, theblock815 may be omitted, e.g., when the patient is assumed to be automatically eligible.

At theblock815, if or when the patient is determined to be eligible for one or more offers of one or more types of insurance, themethod800 may include providing or transmitting the health profile of the patient to one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems to which the system is communicatively coupled (block818), e.g., via one or more network interfaces that communicatively couple the system to the recipient insurance provider computing systems for bid or the generation of one or more insurance offers for which the patient may be an insured party.

In one embodiment, providing or transmitting the health profile of the patient is based upon an assent or consent of the patient (or his or her agent), e.g., to release the examination results and/or other medical information to one or more third parties. For example, themethod800 may include obtaining the assent, consent, or permission to release medical information of the patient, and theblock818 is executed only when the permission to release the patient's medical information has been granted. The assent of the patient or the patient's agent may be obtained in conjunction with the patient's medical diagnostic examination or the patient's assent may be obtained at any other time prior to the execution of the block818 (e.g., via a user interface and/or one or more network interfaces). In one embodiment, an indication of the patient's assent, consent, or granted permission to release medical information may be stored in the one or more data storage devices of the medical diagnosticprovider computing system34 and/or in conjunction with the patient's medical diagnostic examination results (e.g., in the exam results database30).

In one embodiment (not shown), themethod800 may include obtaining an indication of one or more preferred insurance policy terms, such as a desired or preferred amount of a premium payment, term length, insurance provider rating, type of insurance, payout amount, annuity amount, settlement option, and/or other insurance policy term. One or more of the preferred insurance terms may be indicated by the patient, the patient's agent, and/or by the insurance procurement system (e.g., thesystem14 or the system300), such as in conjunction with the patient's medical examination, in conjunction with the patient's consent to release medical information, or at any other time prior to the execution of theblock818. For example, the patient or the patient's agent may queried (asynchronously with the execution of his or medical examination) as to if he or she has any preferences for insurance terms (e.g., via a user interface and/or one or more network interfaces), and the preferences of the patient may be stored with his or her medical examination results. When one or more preferred insurance policy terms are obtained or otherwise available, at least one of the available preferred insurance policy terms may be transmitted in conjunction with the patient's health profile (block818) for use by the insurance provider computing systems to utilize in generating their respective insurance offers.

In some embodiments (not illustrated), prior to transmitting the health profile of the patient to one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems (block818), themethod800 may include determining or selecting the particular recipient insurance provider computing systems. Referring toFIG. 1 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, thesystem14 may determine or select which of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N is or are to receive the patient's health profile, e.g., for bidding purposes. The determination or selection of recipient insurance provider computing systems may be based upon the aforementioned one or more preferred insurance policy terms, for example, one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient, his or her agent, and/or insurance procurer; one or more characteristics of the insurance providers16-1 to16-N (e.g., as indicated by theprovider database32, such as the types of insurance that are respectively provided by each of the providers16-1 through16-N); an availability of each of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through16-N; and/or based upon other criteria.

Each recipient insurance provider computing system may determine, based upon the contents of the received health profile (and optionally on any received preferred insurance policy terms), whether or not the patient or subject is an eligible and/or approved insured party for one or more offers for insurance that are able to be provided by recipient insurance provider. Consequently, one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems may determine, generate, and return, to the system, one or more insurance offers comprising one or more offers for insurance for which the patient is an approved insured party. In one embodiment, the one or more offers for insurance are not merely estimates or non-binding quotes for insurance; instead, the one or more offers for insurance comprise binding quotes, where the acceptance of one of the binding quotes results in a legal contract for insurance.

Moreover, the initial generation of one or more insurance offers for the patient at respective insurance provider computing systems may have been initially triggered or initiated at the respective insurance provider computing systems only based upon the reception of the patient's health profile (and optionally of indicated insurance preferences and/or requirements) at the respective insurance provider computing systems so that the one or more insurance offers are an initial set of insurance offers that are generated for the patient. For example, a specific responding insurance provider computing system may not initiate or begin generating an insurance offer for the patient until the patient's health profile is received at the specific responding insurance provider computing system from the system (e.g., from theinsurance procurement system14 or from the computing system300). That is, the respective insurance provider computing system does not receive (from thesystem14, thesystem300, any other system, or any user interface) any partial personal information corresponding to the and relating to the generation of the one or more insurance offers prior to receiving the patient's health profile from the system (e.g., from thesystem14 or the system300). Indeed, in some cases, the patient's health profile is the sole or only indication of a quality of health of the patient that is received by the respective insurance provider computing system, and the one or more insurance offers may be generated from the sole indication of the patient's quality of health.

Thus, as one or more offers for insurance may be provided to the system by one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems, themethod800 may further include receiving one or more offers for insurance corresponding to one or more respective insurance policies for which the patient or subject is eligible as an insured party (block820). Additionally, themethod800 may still further include providing an indication of the one or more offers for insurance to a user (block822), e.g., via a user interface, via one or more networks, by email, by physical letter, and/or electronically at a user interface of theuser computing device12, the medicaldiagnostic provider system34, theinsurance procurement system14, and/or any one of the insurance provider systems16-1 to16-N, etc., thereby initiating the one or more offers for insurance based upon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results.

Themethod800 may include determining that one of the one or more offers for insurance provided at theblock822 has been selected, e.g., by the patient, the patient's agent, another user, by the procurement system (e.g., thesystem14 or the system300), and/or another computing system (not shown). For example, themethod800 may include receiving an indication of the selected offer for insurance from thecustomer12. In another example, themethod800 may include thesystem14 selecting a particular offer for insurance based upon one or more selection criteria which may be indicated, for example, by the obtained one or more preferred insurance policy terms. The selection criteria may include an indication of an order of priority and/or importance of various criteria, and themethod800 may include comparing the received plurality of insurance offers against the criteria and optionally, their relative priority (not shown). For example, the system may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based upon one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient or consumer, and optionally based upon a prioritization of the preferences and/or requirements that have been previously indicated. If no insurance preferences and/or requirements have been otherwise indicated, the system may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based upon one or more default criteria, e.g., the lowest monthly premium amount.

Themethod800 may include accepting the selected binding quote on behalf of the patient or the patient's agent (not shown). For example, permission to accept a binding quote on behalf of the patient based upon the results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination results may have been granted in conjunction with his or her medical diagnostic examination. In one embodiment, determining the selection of binding quote includes accepting the selected binding quote on behalf of the patient, thereby resulting in a legal contract for insurance.

Themethod800 may further include providing an indication of the selected binding quote to the insurance provider computing system16xthat provided or generated the selected binding quote in response to receiving the patient's health profile (not shown). The insurance provider computing system16x, upon being notified that its insurance offer has been selected, may proceed to underwrite, bind, and/or perform other actions to move the insurance policy to being in an “in-force” state. Further, the insurance provider computing system16xmay provide indications notifications that one or more of the actions has been completed, e.g., that the policy has been underwritten, that the policy has been bound, that the policy is in force, etc. As such, themethod800 may include receiving, e.g. at the system, one or more indications of these and/or other actions that have been completed by the insurance provider computing system16xto move the insurance policy towards being in-force.

In some embodiments (not shown), themethod800 may include initiating at least a partial refund of the cost of the medical diagnostic examination. Additionally or alternatively, themethod800 may include initiating a credit corresponding to at least a portion of the cost of the medical diagnostic examination towards future premiums and/or fees of the insurance policy. For example, upon receiving notification that the insurance policy has been bound, themethod800 may initiate at least one of the refund or the credit.

In some embodiments, at least some of the blocks810-822 are included in an automated auction of the patient's health profile, such as described in aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, or some other suitable automated auction. Auctioning the patient's health profile may further include selecting one of the received plurality of insurance offers. For example, the system may receive an indication of preferences, requirements, and/or priorities of one or more insurance characteristics, and the system may automatically select the one of the returned insurance offers that best meets the indicated preferences, requirements and/or priorities (or alternatively, that best meets the one or more default criteria). The system may automatically provide the selected insurance offer to the patient, patient's agent, and/or another user.

While themethod800 has been described above with respect to a particular patient, this is only one of many embodiments. For example, a particular patient's health profile may be grouped with the health profiles of other patients, and the group of health profiles may be auctioned to various insurance providers and at least some of the insurance providers may return one or more bids for the group of health profiles, e.g., in a manner such as described in aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596. Indeed, any one or more of the techniques described herein for initiating the procurement of insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations may operate in conjunction with one or more aspects of U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, if desired. In some embodiments, though, patient health profiles are not auctioned, and are merely sent out to one or more insurance provider systems for a single round of bidding.

Further, themethod800 may be utilized for one or more sets of medical diagnostic examination records, and/or with one or more different insurance providers. In an example scenario, themethod800 may obtain a single set of examination results for a particular patient (block810), and may transmit the health profile of said patient to multiple different insurance providers' systems (block818) e.g., to automatically initiate offers for insurance based upon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results. In another example scenario, themethod800 may obtain multiple sets of medical diagnostic examination results corresponding to multiple patients (block810), and respective health profiles for each of the sets of results may be transmitted to a single insurance provider's system (818), e.g., to automatically initiate offers for insurance based upon the patients' medical diagnostic examination results.

Still further, in themethod800, the offers that are received from the one or more insurance providers system's (block820) may be binding offers or quotes for insurance, or may be non-binding offers or quotes for insurance. Additionally, as previously discussed, in some embodiments, themethod800 may automatically select one of the received offers, while in some embodiments of themethod800, the patient or the patient's agent may select one of the received offers. Also as previously discussed, in some embodiments, themethod800 may automatically cause the selected offer to be bound, thereby automatically providing insurance for the patient based upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results.

X. Additional Considerations

The following additional considerations apply to the foregoing discussion. Throughout this specification, plural instances may implement operations or structures described as a single instance. Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustrated and described as separate operations, one or more of the individual operations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that the operations be performed in the order illustrated. These and other variations, modifications, additions, and improvements fall within the scope of the subject matter herein.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, discussions herein using words such as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,” “presenting,” “displaying,” or the like may refer to actions or processes of a machine (e.g., a computer) that manipulates or transforms data represented as physical (e.g., electronic, magnetic, or optical) quantities within one or more memories (e.g., volatile memory, non-volatile memory, or a combination thereof), registers, or other machine components that receive, store, transmit, or display information.

As used herein any reference to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular element, feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary, “or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example, a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true (or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or not present) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (or present).

In addition, use of “a” or “an” is employed to describe elements and components of the embodiments herein. This is done merely for convenience and to give a general sense of the invention. This description should be read to include one or at least one and the singular also includes the plural unless it is obvious that it is meant otherwise.

Upon reading this disclosure, those of skill in the art will appreciate still additional alternative structural and functional designs for a system and a process of automatically obtaining and/or maintaining insurance coverage through the principles disclosed herein. Thus, while particular embodiments and applications have been illustrated and described, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are not limited to the precise construction and components disclosed herein. Various modifications, changes and variations, which will be apparent to those skilled in the art, may be made in the arrangement, operation and details of the method and apparatus disclosed herein without departing from the spirit and scope defined in the appended claims.

The patent claims at the end of this patent application are not intended to be construed under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) unless traditional means-plus-function language is expressly recited, such as “means for” or “step for” language being explicitly recited in the claim(s).