System and Method For Flexible Insurance Rating Calculation

Abstract

A product rate calculation system operating as a rating server (e.g., a process executing on a server computer system, or a process executing on the same computer system as a client process but serving information to the client process) advantageously provides a flexible insurance rating calculation system that can easily be modified and expanded, while still providing quick, and even real-time responsiveness to product rate requests. The product rate calculation system includes an interface to a product information database and a cache for storing product rate information for efficient reuse. The product rate information includes product rate expressions that are parsed and evaluated by an expression evaluation routine to determine a product rate. As part of the evaluation process, additional product rate information (such as look-up table data and numerical constants) as well as consumer information can be used.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A product rate calculation system comprising:
 a database interface operable to request and receive product rate information from a database, the product rate information including at least one product rate expression;   a product rate information cache storing product rate information;   an expression evaluation routine operable to parse a product rate expression stored in the product rate information cache into at least one token, and operable to evaluate the at least one token to determine a product rate; and   a client interface operable to provide the product rate to a client application running on a computer system.   
     
     
         2 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  wherein the product rate information includes at least one multi-dimensional table of data. 
     
     
         3 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 2  wherein at least one dimension of the at least one multi-dimensional table is indexed by consumer information provided to the client interface. 
     
     
         4 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  wherein the at least one token is a plurality of tokens, at least one of the plurality of tokens being an operand, and at least one other of the plurality of tokens being an operator. 
     
     
         5 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 4  wherein the operand is one of a constant numeric value, a variable, a logic value, a function, and a string; and
 wherein the operator is one of a numeric operator and a logic operator. 
 
     
     
         6 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 4  wherein the operand and the operator are arranged in the product rate expression following one of post-fix, pre-fix, and in-fix notation. 
     
     
         7 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  wherein product rate information is insurance product rate information. 
     
     
         8 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  wherein the expression evaluation routine uses consumer information provided to the client interface to evaluate the at least one token. 
     
     
         9 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  further comprising a client application running on a computer system and being configured to:
 provide product information, including the product rate, to a user; 
 provide consumer information to the client interface; and 
 receive the product rate. 
 
     
     
         10 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 9  wherein the product information is product information for at least one of home insurance, life insurance, health insurance, automobile insurance, and renter's insurance. 
     
     
         11 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 9  wherein the client application running on a computer system is a web server application. 
     
     
         12 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 11  further comprising a web-client computer system, the computer system and the web-client computer system being coupled via a network. 
     
     
         13 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  wherein at least one of the database interface, the product rate information cache, the expression evaluation routine and the client interface is encoded in a computer readable medium as instructions executable on a processor, the computer readable medium being one of an electronic storage medium, a magnetic storage medium, an optical storage medium, and a communications medium conveying signals encoding the instructions. 
     
     
         14 . The product rate calculation system of  claim 1  further comprising a database operable to receive a product rate information request from the database interface and provide product rate information to the database interface, the database including at least one of the product rate expression, a multi-dimensional table of data, and a numeric value stored as a database record. 
     
     
         15 . A method calculating a product rate comprising:
 loading product rate information including at least one product rate expression from a database;   storing the product rate information in a cache;   receiving a request for a product rate from a client application running on a computer system;   parsing the at least one product rate expression stored in the cache into at least one token;   evaluating the at least one token to determine the product rate; and   transmitting the product rate to the client application running on the computer system.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the product rate information includes at least one of a multi-dimensional table of data and a numeric value. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the product rate information is stored as a plurality of records in the database. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the receiving a request further comprises receiving consumer information from the client application running on the computer system, the consumer information being used to evaluate the at least one token to determine the product rate. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the product rate information is insurance product rate information. 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the loading and storing are performed once, and wherein the receiving, parsing, evaluating, and transmitting are performed a plurality of times. 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the at least one token is a plurality of tokens, at least one of the plurality of tokens being an operand, and at least one other of the plurality of tokens being an operator. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 21  wherein the operand is one of a constant numeric value, a variable, a logic value, a function, and a string; and wherein the operator is one of a numeric operator and a logic operator. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 21  wherein the operand and the operator are arranged in the product rate expression following one of post-fix, pre-fix, and in-fix notation. 
     
     
         24 . The method of  claim 15  wherein the evaluating the at least one token to determine the product rate further comprises at least one of:
 performing a mathematical operation; 
 performing a logical operation; and 
 retrieving data from a multi-dimensional table of data stored in the cache. 
 
     
     
         25 . The method of  claim 15  encoded in a computer readable medium as instructions executable on a processor, the computer readable medium being one of an electronic storage medium, a magnetic storage medium, an optical storage medium, and a communications medium conveying signals encoding the instructions. 
     
     
         26 . A system for calculating product rates comprising:
 a processor configured to request and receive product rate information from a database, the product rate information including at least one product rate expression; and   a memory cache configured to store the product rate information including the at least one product rate expression; the processor being further configured to evaluate the at least one product rate expression by parsing the at least one product rate expression into at least one token and evaluating the at least one token to determine a product rate.