Insurance method

Abstract

An insurance method. A user executes an insurance contract with an insurance provider to insure the user against a loss suffered by the user due to a data failure pertaining to exchanging electronic data between a user computer system and a transaction party computer system. A transaction monitoring program installed on the user computer system monitors packets of data transmitted to or received from the transaction party computer system by an application program of the user computer system. A transaction record is generated from captured packets. The user submits a claim to the insurance provider for an incurred loss due to a data failure pertaining to the transmitted or received packets of data. The user receives an insurance payment from the insurance provider for the incurred loss in accordance with the insurance contract after the insurance provider has analyzed the transaction record to determine a cause of the loss.

1 . An insurance method, comprising: 
 submitting data by a user to an insurance provider;    contracting, by a user with an insurance provider, to establish an insurance contract between the user and the insurance provider, wherein the insurance contract insures the user against a loss suffered by the user due to a data failure in relation to exchanging electronic data between a user computer system of the user and a transaction party computer system of a transaction party over a communication network during a transaction between the user and the transaction party, and wherein the insurance contract comprises an insurance limit and a premium based on the data submitted by the user to the insurance provider;    after the contract has been established, obtaining by the user from the insurance provider a transaction monitoring program for monitoring said exchanging electronic data between the user and the transaction party;    after the transaction monitoring program has been installed on the user computer system, communicating packets of data, wherein said communicating packets of data is selected from the group consisting of transmitting the packets of data from an application program of the user computer system to the transaction party computer system or and receiving the packets of data by the application program of the user computer system from the transaction party computer system;    monitoring said exchanging electronic data between the user and the transaction party, wherein said monitoring said exchanging electronic data comprises monitoring the transmitted or received packets, wherein said monitoring is performed by the transaction monitoring program executing on a processor of the user computer system and comprises: capturing the transmitted or received packets, generating a transaction record whose content is derived from the captured packets; and storing the transaction record in a storage medium of the user computer system;    incurring a loss by the user due to a data failure in relation to the transmitted or received packets;    submitting a claim, by the user to the insurance provider, for the incurred loss, wherein said submitting the claim comprises retrieving the transaction record from the storage medium of the user computer system and sending the retrieved transaction record to an insurance provider computer system of the insurance provider; and    after said submitting the claim, receiving an insurance payment, by the user from the insurance provider, for the incurred loss in accordance with the insurance contract after the insurance provider has analyzed the transaction record to determine a cause of the loss.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the insurance payment comprises a payment of money  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said generating the transaction record comprises: 
 generating a set of data comprising header portions and packet data of the packets subject to the generated set of data not comprising duplicative header portions;    applying a hash function to the generated set of data to generate a hash value;    encrypting the hash value to generate an encrypted hash value; and    forming the transaction record as a concatenation of the encrypted hash value and the generated set of data.    
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein said encrypting comprises encrypting the hash value with a public key of the insurance provider according to a public key cryptography in which a private key corresponding to the public key is exclusively possessed by the insurance provider.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data failure is recited in the insurance contract to be a data communication failure with respect to said exchanging electronic data.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the data failure is recited in the insurance contract to be a data communication failure with respect to an interference by a third party with said exchanging electronic data.