BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
THIS invention relates to a system for operating an insurance scheme to insure a performance bonus of a person.
Insurance products which protect income of insured people are typically income replacement products or benefits which insure the policyholders or insured persons for a fixed percentage of their salaries, for example 75% of their salaries. These products do not take into consideration any performance related bonuses that may have been earned.
Performance bonuses often form a significant portion of a person's income and many rely on this additional income to cover certain expenses or to supplement their salaries. It will be appreciated that a performance bonus is typically a portion or more of the annual salary of person.
It follows that in times of illness or disability, policyholders or insured persons may suffer not only from the shortfall on their salaries as paid out by the income replacement products but they may not receive any performance related bonuses that may otherwise have been paid to them. It follows that this can result in a significant loss in income during periods of illness or disability.
It is an object of the present invention at least to address the abovementioned problem.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a system for operating an insurance scheme to insure a performance bonus of an
insured person against a predetermined or predefined event occurring in a particular reference year, the system comprising:
a percentage bonus determining module arranged to determine percentage bonus information indicative of a percentage of an annual salary received by the insured person as a performance bonus in a predetermined period prior to the particular reference year;
a health scheme status determining module arranged to determine health scheme status information associated with the insured person; and
an insured performance bonus determining module arranged to use at least the percentage bonus information and the health scheme status information to determine a portion or more of an annual salary, of the insured person in the particular year, payable as an insured performance bonus in the event of the predetermined or defined event.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Figure 1 shows a schematic block diagram of a system for operating
an insurance scheme in accordance with an example embodiment;
Figure 2 shows a high level flow diagram of a method for operating an
insurance scheme in accordance with an example embodiment;
Figure 3 shows a flow diagram of a step of the method illustrated in
Figure 2 in greater detail; and
Figure 4 shows a flow diagram of another step of the method illustrated in Figure 2 in greater detail.
DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of an embodiment of the present disclosure. It will be evident, however, to one skilled in the art that the present disclosure may be practiced without these specific details.
Referring to Figure 1 of the drawings where a system for operating an insurance scheme in accordance with an example embodiment is generally indicated by reference numeral 10. The system 10 is for operating an insurance scheme to insure a performance bonus of an insured person, against a predefined insured event occurring in a particular reference year.
For brevity, the person whose performance bonus is insured will be referred to as the insured person, insured, or policyholder. However, it will be noted that the policyholder need not necessarily be the insured or insured person.
The insured event is for example death, illness and/or disability of the insured person.
The particular reference year may be a current year in which the insured event occurs.
Returning to Figure 1, the system 10 typically comprises a plurality of components or modules which correspond to the functional tasks to be performed by the system 10. In this regard, "module" in the context of the specification will be understood to include an identifiable portion of code, computational or executable instructions, data, or computational object to achieve a particular function, operation, processing, or procedure. It
follows that a module need not be implemented in software; a module may be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of software and hardware. Further, the modules need not necessarily be consolidated into one device or system but may be spread across a plurality of devices or systems to achieve desired functionality.
In particular, the system 10 comprises a percentage bonus determining module 12 arranged to determine percentage bonus information indicative of a percentage of an annual salary received by the insured person as a performance bonus in a predetermined period prior to the particular reference year. It will be appreciated that the module 12 is arranged to receive percentage data indicative of the percentage of the annual salary which the insured received as a performance bonus in each year in the predetermined period prior to the reference year. The predetermined period is typically three years prior to the reference year but may be any other suitable time period. The module 12 is then further arranged conveniently to determine an average percentage of the percentage data received (this will be described in greater detail below).
The system 10 also comprises a health scheme status determining module 14 arranged to determine health scheme status information associated with the insured. The health scheme status information typically includes a predetermined percentage corresponding to a particular status of the insured person in terms of a health scheme benefit. This may be explained with reference to Table 1 below.
Table 1
(Table Removed ) In an example embodiment, with reference to Table 1, the module 14 is arranged to determine that the status of the insured in terms of the health
scheme benefit is for example silver. It follows that the module 14 is then arranged to determine that the percentage corresponding to the determined status is 50%.
In an example embodiment, the health scheme benefit may be linked to a medical insurance scheme which the insured belongs to. In an example embodiment, the health scheme benefit may be a wellness programme for example the applicant's Vitality™ programme. The wellness programme may preferably be the applicant's programme disclosed in South African granted patent number ZA 99/1746 and the commonly owned U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 09/982,274, which are both hereby incorporated by reference.
It follows that the module 14 may be communicatively coupled to the medical insurance scheme or operating systems associated therewith to obtain information therefrom. Instead, or in addition, the system 10 may include a database 18 arranged to store at least health scheme status information associated with insured persons.
The system 10 also comprises an insured performance bonus determining module 16 arranged to use at least the percentage bonus information and the health scheme status information to determine a portion or more of an annual salary, of the insured person in the particular reference year, payable as an insured performance bonus (described in greater detail below). It will be appreciated that the module 16 is arranged to receive information indicative of the annual salary of the insured in the particular reference year.
The system 10 may typically include a premium determining module 20 arranged to determine a premium payable as correlated with the determined insured performance bonus.
Example embodiments will now be further described in use with reference to Figures 2 to 4. The example methods shown in Figures 2 to 4 are
described with reference to Figure 1, although it is to be appreciated that the example methods may be applicable to other systems (not illustrated) as well.
Referring to Figure 2 of the drawings where a flow diagram of a method in accordance with an example embodiment is generally indicated by numeral 30. It will be appreciated that the method 30 is a method at least to determine an insured performance bonus payable to an insured in the event of the insured becoming ill and/or disabled.
The method 30 includes receiving or determining, at block 32 by way of module 12 for example, percentage bonus information indicative of a percentage of an annual salary received by the insured person as a performance bonus in a predetermined period prior to the particular reference year.
Turning now to Figure 3 of the drawings where reference numeral 40 refers to a flow diagram of a method which describes step 32 of Figure 2 in greater detail. The method 40 will also be explained with reference to Table 2 below.
Table 2
(Table Removed ) The method 40 includes receiving, at block 42, percentage data indicative of the percentage of the annual salary which the insured person received as a performance bonus in each year for three years prior to the particular reference year. Referring to Table 2, where assuming the reference year is 2009, the method 40 includes receiving, at block 42, the percentages of the
annual salaries received as bonuses for the years 2006 to 2008 which are: 25% for 2006, 10% for 2007 and 15% for 2008.
The method 40 then includes determining, at block 44, an average percentage of the percentage data received. It follows that that the average percentage for the period 2006 to 2008 from Table 2 is 16.7%.
Returning to Figure 2, the method 30 further includes receiving, at block 34, health scheme status information associated with the insured person by way of module 14 as hereinbefore described. As hereinbefore mentioned, where the module 14 determines for example that the insured has a silver status, the percentage corresponding to the status is 50%.
The method 30 then includes advantageously using, at block 36 by way of the module 16, at least the percentage bonus information and the health scheme status information to determine the insured performance bonus.
Turning now also to Figure 4 of the drawings where reference numeral 50 refers to a flow diagram of a method which describes step 36 of Figure 2 in greater detail. The method 50 includes multiplying, at block 52 by way of module 16, the annual salary of the insured in the particular reference year, for example 2009, by the determined average percentage described above (for 2006 to 2008) to obtain a first product. So where the annual salary of the insured in 2009 is R500 000, the first product is R500 000 x 16.7% = R83 500.
The method 50 then includes multiplying, at block 54, the first product by the percentage corresponding to the status of the insured. So where the percentage is 50% as hereinbefore described, the insured performance bonus may be determined as R83 500 x 50% = R41 750.

It will be noted that the determined insured performance bonus is then payable to the insured should he/she become ill and/or disabled.
The invention as hereinbefore described provides a convenient way to protect an insured person against loss of his/her performance bonus in the event of death, illness and/or disability for example.

WE CLAIM:
1. A system for operating an insurance scheme to insure a performance
bonus of an insured person against an insured event, the system
comprising:
a percentage bonus determining module arranged to determine percentage bonus information indicative of a percentage of an annual salary received by the insured person as a performance bonus in a predetermined period;
a health scheme status determining module arranged to determine health scheme status information associated with the insured person; and
an insured performance bonus determining module arranged to use at least the percentage bonus information and the health scheme status information to determine a portion or more of an annual salary of the insured person payable as an insured performance bonus in the event of the insured event.
2. A system according to claim 1 wherein the percentage bonus determining module further determines information indicative of the current annual salary of the insured person.
3. A system according to claim 2 wherein the percentage bonus determining module determines percentage data indicative of the percentage of the annual salary which the insured person received as a performance bonus in each year in a predetermined period prior to a current year and determines an average percentage of the percentage data received.
4. A system according to claim 3 wherein the predetermined period is
three years.
5. A system according to any one of claims 1 to 4 wherein the insured
event is one or more of death, illness and disability.
6. A system according to any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein the insured
performance bonus determining module uses the health scheme status
information to determine a percentage corresponding to a particular
status of the insured person in terms of the health scheme.
7. A system according to any one of claims 1 to 4 wherein the system
uses the determined insured performance bonus to determine an
insurance premium payable by the insured person.