FORM-2
THE PATENTS ACT, 1970
(39 of 1970)
&
THE PATENTS RULES, 2006
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
(See section 10; rule 13)


INSURANCE INTERFACING SYSTEM
TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES LTD.
an Indian Company of Nirmal Building, 9th floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, Maharashtra, India

THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATION DESCRIBES THE INVENTION


FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of insurance.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
Insurance is the transfer of risk of loss from one entity to another in exchange of a premium. The first written insurance policy appeared in ancient times on a Babylonian obelisk monument with the code of King Hammurabi carved into it. The "Hammurabi Code" was one of the first forms of written laws. These ancient laws offered basic insurance in which a debtor did not have to pay back his loans if he faced some personal catastrophe like disability, death or flooding. The code of Hammurabi also provided financial insurance in which, if a merchant received a loan to fund his shipment, he paid the lender an additional sum in exchange for the lender's guarantee to cancel the loan if the shipment was stolen.
Similarly, the inhabitants of Rhodes invented the concept of the 'general average'. Merchants whose goods were being shipped together paid a proportionally divided premium which used to be reimbursed to any merchant whose goods were jettisoned during storm or sinkage.
Other forms of insurance those were seen in ancient times were by the Achaemenian monarchs, who were the first to insure their people and also officially register the insuring process in governmental notary offices. The purpose of registering was that whenever the registered person was in trouble or wanted to construct a building, to set up a feast, to have his children married, the monarch and the court helped him. The Greeks and Romans introduced the origins of health and life insurance in 600 AD when they organized guilds called "benevolent societies" which cared for the
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families and paid funeral expenses of members upon death. Guilds in the middle ages served a similar purpose.
In 1654, Blaise Pascal, a Frenchman discovered the first calculator, and his countryman Pierre de Fermat discovered a way to express probabilities and, thereby, understand the levels of risk. Pascal's triangle led to the first actuary tables that were, and still are, used when calculating insurance rates. These formalized the practice of underwriting and made insurance more affordable.
In 1666, the great fire of London destroyed around 14,000 buildings. As a response to the chaos and outrage that followed the burning of London, groups of underwriters who had dealt exclusively in marine insurance formed insurance companies that offered fire insurance.
Today, insurance has become the need of the hour for securing property and the future of a family. Various insurance products are now available including insurance for life, vehicle, medical, travel, property and the like. However, with the increase in insurance products, it becomes difficult for the policy holders (customer) to keep track of their insurance profile. Especially, difficulties are faced in keeping track of the due and maturity dates for the policies and the funds accumulated in each and in contacting customer care executives in case whether any amendments or cancellations have to be made to the policies.
Not only the policy holders but also the insurance users including employees, operations and management staff, partners, brokers and the like need access to the insurance system to access policy data and new product
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information, to plan strategically, to generate dashboards and reports, to keep track of the premium payments and the like.
The competitive market also makes it essential for the insurers to provide efficient services to increase customer satisfaction and to retain their customers. In addition, the insurance organizations are faced with challenges of how to differentiate themselves from others, to penetrate into markets, to leverage existing investments for future initiatives, to recognize and adapt to frequent business process changes and improve the sales, to improve the customer loyalty, to share the intellectual capital across the organization efficiently and for minimal investment on the implementation and maintenance of the insurance system.
There is therefore a need for a system:
• to provide a single view and access to all stakeholders of the insurance system;
• to provide policy holders with single point of contact for all their queries and enquiries;
• to provide a single channel to insurance users to access data on new products, promotions on existing products and the like; and
• to provide a geographically distributed, internet based system, that can cater to the requirements of different stakeholders of the insurance system.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a single system for unifying all insurance operations.
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It is another object of the present invention to provide a cost-effective insurance interface system which minimizes TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a multi-lingual insurance interface system.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a multi-currency insurance interface system.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a user-friendly insurance interface system which is simple to be operated by users.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system which supports different stakeholders like agents, broker houses, policy holders, beneficiaries, re-insurers and third party applications.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a secure system which caters to diversified requirements of different stakeholders with the same infrastructure backbone.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system which gives 360 degree of customer portfolio.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a system which gives users a single point of customer contact and Enhances the self service capabilities.
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It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system which improves the reusability of existing insurance systems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention envisages a system that will provide a single interface for unifying all insurance operations.
Particularly, the present invention supports diversified requirements of a large audience like agents, broker houses, policy holders, beneficiaries, re¬insurers, third party applications and employees through the same infrastructure backbone.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a comprehensive system has been provided to effectively cater to different user group requirements by incorporating the following views:
• Application View: Application view provides a broad overview of the insurance interface system;
• Integration View: Integration view provides a standardized way of integrating existing systems with the flexibility of accommodating changes with less impact on connected systems;
• Data View: Data View depicts the data requirements of the different views and the users of the system;
• Security View: Security View provides different mechanisms for implementing security; and
• Infrastructure View: Infrastructure View provides the necessary setup for the insurance interface system.
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According to an embodiment of the present invention, the different stakeholders of the system are provided with role based access and Single Sign-On (SSO) to the system, thus enabling them to directly login to the insurance interface system and its collaboration systems through a single user ID and password.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, the system caters to the needs of a growing, diverse and geographically distributed customer base by supporting multi-languages and also multiple-currencies.
According to still another embodiment of the present invention, the system integrates with mobile devices including mobile phones, PDA's and the like and thus enables stakeholders to have information about the insurance interface system on their finger tips.
According to yet another embodiment of the. present invention, policy holders will be provided with services including:
• self service capabilities where policy holders can raise their queries and get the real-time quotes;
• downloading or uploading their application forms attaching the relevant documents;
• tracking their service requests, view the history of policy and claims and make payments online;
• using collaboration tools to chat and/or query on the products and/or problems;
• personalizing the content that will help them in consuming what is needed;
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• providing 360 degree of the customer holding and also manage all their policies/claims/payments; and
• providing information about the product and/or agent locators, call center toll free numbers or other contact details of direct sales etc.
According to still another embodiment of the present invention, the system integrates with agency management systems to support real-time transactions and facilitate single entry of data for new business and other policy activities. The agent management system provides the present invention with the marketing and training materials and enables the system to personalize and use the relevant content. The present invention also provides the capability of building branded web sites which can easily reach the market in case of business partners or broker house type of business.
In accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention, interface with third party CRM (customer relationship management) application like Salesforce has been, provided to facilitate searching for insurer's prospects, policy holders, relevant policy, claims details and the like for serving the customer efficiently. Collaborative workspace enables the insurers to communicate with their staff, for example, underwriters to negotiate for exception or over-ride, and reduce the turn around time. The up-sell opportunities are also improved by providing Salesforce with single view of customers and customers' behaviors and goals through a periodic notification mechanism. Also, Salesforce is provided with details on customer profile, commission statements, and performance analysis results.
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According to still another embodiment of the present invention, insurers are provided with the analytics, metrics, and reporting, such as measure of customer interaction across a variety of systems in order to prioritize marketing and sales investments. In addition, insurers can share their information with WRAP systems and also with third party applications used by business partners.
In accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention, the present invention enables the call center staff, customer relationship managers and direct sales force to operate efficiently by providing them with 360 degree customer views and access to collaborative workspace with customers and sales force. Sales team, relationship managers and business management are provided access to sales analytics and metrics to analyze profitability, improve marketing and sales investments. Moreover, internal staffs are provided with details of their day to day activities. These features of scheduling and tracking of activities improve the productivity of the staff.
According to still another embodiment of the present invention, a platform for e-learning is provided for the staff to provide knowledge to efficiently handle customer queries, enable them for the day to day activities, and optimize their career paths. Also, users are provided with search facility to easily find required contents irrespective of the repository in which the information resides.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
The invention will now be described in relation .to the accompanying drawings, in which:
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Figure 1 illustrates a schematic of the insurance interface system and its interfaces; and
Figure 2 illustrates a schematic of the insurance interface system in the infrastructure view.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings which do not limit the scope and ambit of the invention. The description provided is purely by way of example and illustration.
According to the present invention, a comprehensive insurance interface system has been provided to effectively cater to different stakeholder group requirements, insurance needs, and trends and to provide a competitive edge to the insurer organizations.
In accordance with the present invention, the insurance interface system will now be described with respect to the following views:
• Application view
• Integration view
• Data view
• Security view
• Infrastructure view
Application view
The application view provides a broad overview of the insurance interface system. Referring to Figure 1, users represented by block 10 of Figure 1 represent the various stakeholders of the insurance system. Most common insurance users are lead & policy holders, business partners, independent
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financial advisors (IFA's), brokers and internal staffs. In addition to these common users, the present invention provides entry points to other type of users such as reinsurers, third party administrators (TPA's) and statutory authorities.
Apart from the traditional way of accessing the system through web based interface on desktop computers, the present invention are also accessed on handheld devices such as PDA's and mobile phones.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, to penetrate and retain the users 10, separate user interfaces targeting specific needs of user groups are designed. The specialized User Interfaces (UI) for the set of user groups represented by block 12 of Figure 1 are mentioned below:
• Customer UI: For leads & customers;
• Partner UI: For business partner, IF A, brokers, reinsurer, TPA;
• Employee UI: For internal staffs;
• BI (Business Intelligence) UI: For management groups; and
• Operation UI: For call center, TPA and internal staffs.
These user interfaces 12 form the logical partition within the single or clustered system installation. This allows sharing of the UI and system resources efficiently. User 10 can either directly login into the system via the specialized UI or enter via another third party interface through Single Sign-on.
The respective UI 12, on successful authentication, connect the users 10 to the Portal server and sub systems represented by block 14 of Figure 1. The
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server and its sub systems provide a strong platform to meet the insurance business challenges.
The main building blocks of the Portal Server 14 include:
• Authentication: The present invention can be configured to one or more LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) for user authentication. LDAP also supports other data stores. The present invention facilitates authentication using digital signature and identity manager. If the enterprise has an Identity manager deployed, the present invention accepts the authentication token and skips the authentication.
• Authorization: Authorization provided by the present invention is flexible and it is role based. Users categorized into groups are assigned roles and privileges using Admin portlets/scripts. The authorization rules, roles and mapping to portafresources are stored in the present inventions data store. After successful authentication, the user's authorization privileges are checked and the portlets/contents are pulled based on the preconfigured role based access.
• Branding and White Label: Vendor specific or user specific branding is achieved by customizing UI themes, skins and configuring the portal server's personalization engine and authorization module. Template based UI themes are very flexible and allow enterprises to have Product wise or Channel wise branding of UI for Agents/BP and others user groups. Look and feel of the UI for users who enter the present invention from third party web site can be maintained. by effective authorization and choosing appropriate themes.
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• Self Service: UI provides an aggregate view of the backend insurance and non-insurance application information and delivers them through portlets as one view. Information from each of the portlets are collated as HTML fragments and rendered as one view for the users, enabling 360 degree view of the portfolios/information. The integration and data exchange between the portlets is achieved by the Inter Portlet communication or by Portlet messaging depending on the data type and complexity. The present invention provides Live text tagging to users to facilitate access to relevant supporting information with a single click, without leaving the page they are viewing.
• Enterprise Content Management (ECM) & Web Content Management (WCM): Business users can create dynamic product and marketing contents using Web Content Management which is usually bundled with the Portal server 14. WCM provides easy to use "Web Editor" which allows business user to view and edit pages (In¬line editing). Template based authoring, presentation, content versioning and workflow enabled approval process ease the content authoring and publishing. Policy, claims and other insurance related documents are viewed, edited and uploaded using the portlets. The documents are stored and managed by- the underlying backend enterprise content manager.
• Globalization - Internationalization & Localization: The Portal Server 14 supports internationalization which handles all targeted linguistic and cultural variations (such as text orientation, date-time format, currency, accented and double-byte characters and so forth). Portal Server 14 provides translation engine to dynamically translate menus and messages into the native language. The present invention
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displays the information localized to the user location or user attributes by customizing personalization modules.
• Personalization and Customization: Users can access personalized information based on their role, groups, profiles, context, location and preferences based on the needs of individual user. Personalization rule engine provisions dynamic profiling of e-users and allows display of personalized 'contents based' user site navigations. Out-of-Box UI features are leveraged to provide customization at least at 3 different levels. End users can customize the portlets/values which are of interest to them. Group manager can customize the portlets/screens which a group can see. Administrator can define the master configuration for the given portlet.
• Search and collaboration: In-built search can be configured to search portal pages/ portlets and contents within the Web Content Manager/Content manager. The in-built search engine allows search based on role and/or context. Existing or new enterprise search engines can be integrated with the portal server 14. Search can also be configured to co-operate with other data source or any external third party data sources. The present invention provides a way for users to set up communities and to interact with other community members. Portal server 14 provides a set of pre-configured, ready to use collaborative portlets which enables users to interact with corporate white pages, organizational charts, instant messaging, virtual meeting and team workplace. The portal server 14 can be integrated with number of collaboration tools. Few of the tools are listed below:

• Email, Mailing Lists, Newsgroups
• Bulletin Boards
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• Web Conferencing, Audio & Video Conferencing
• Chat
• Desktop Integration with the intranet

• Out of the box Portlets: Portal server 14 comes with a variety of out-of-box portlets such as manage use?, eorfiguve page, bookmark, calendar etc to help administrate the portal server 14 and serve general insurance needs. Elegant and robust authorization features (out of box) allows users to manage various UI without the help of the technical team. A wide range of functional portlets such as dashboards, survey, discussion forum, meeting minutes and the like are available for free and/or paid download.
• Web 2.0 Support: The portal server 14 of the present invention supports most of the Web 2.0 features. AJAX enables the enterprise to open up more functionalities for self service and improve on the usability of the present invention. Market news, enterprise news, information required for underwriter/actuarial can be subscribed to the portal server 14 by integrating with RSS /ATOM feeds providers such as flash, Reuters, fosters and the like. Wikis and biogs modules/application can be integrated to the portal server 14 by using out of the box services. Agents, business partners and internal staff also can use these features to share their knowledge and ideas.
• WSRP: WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portlets) is an important cross-platform standard that will allow organizations to federate their portals and freely interoperate and share resources across the enterprise. Business Partner UI acts as WSRP producer and shares the
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functionality as WSRP enabled portlets which can be subscribed by the Portal Server 14.
Error handling is very important to respond to users gracefully in abnormal conditions. The Logging, Exception & Caching (LEC) system represented by block 26 of Figure 1 handles the exceptions and displays the messages accordingly. The LEC system 26 handles input validations, exceptions thrown by the service interface represented by block 18 of Figure 1 and provides meaningful error messages. To handle the exceptions from services interface 18, the underlying core systems or supporting systems represented by block 22 and 24 of Figure 1 are designed to throw the messages appropriately.
Logging is implemented by integrating industry proven framework like log4j. This framework jars are added to the class path, so that they get loaded when the server starts and the classes are available for use in portlets.
Caching handles the data requirements for all kinds of users of the UI and maintains a better response time. Caching, typically can be in-memory or in db caches. The method of caching can be chosen on the basis of the requirements at each level of the present invention like UI, Web Content, service interface and underlying application requirements, J2EE server vendors provide server side caching which is configurable to handle the application specific data requirements. Services can be built to access these caches to fetch the data which can be consumed by portlets or other units of present invention.
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Integration View
The present invention interfaces with enterprise data represented by block 20 of Figure 1, with core insurance systems represented by block 22 of Figure 1, and with other enterprise applications represented by block 24 of Figure 1 through the services exposed and deployed in the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) at the service interface 18. ESB acts as message broker and provides process orchestration, protocol translations, adapters, change management of services, transaction handling, encryption and security.
Portlets look up and submit web service requests (Simple Object Access Protocol requests) or RPC (Remote Procedure Calls) request with the input parameters to the ESB unit of 18. These services can communicate with message queue or with business processes running on a process engine. As part of the business process execution, process engine interacts with rule engines for rule execution or interface with data access units or invokes web services which in turn will invoke core systems 22 after authorization and by passing the parameters. Process engine consolidates and returns the responses to the service requester. This interface 18 handles the exceptions thrown at different phases of execution and returns the details to the requested application as part of the response.
ESB unit of 18 is a good choice for organizations with the strategy of building SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) enabled services due to its capability for supporting industry standards of communication and facilitating cross platform interoperability. Latest versions of ESB unit of 18 supports RESTful web services which can be utilized by external applications like agency systems to consume the services by which the data
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entered in agency systems can be integrated with insurer systems for real time transactions.
Organizations can extract audit information on a number of requests serviced, number of requests failed etc. This interface 18 enables the standardized way of integrating existing systems with the flexibility of accommodating changes with less impact on connected systems.
Existing insurance company's web applications such as quotation, claims, collections and the like are required to be integrated with the portal sever & sub systems 14 without needing redevelopment. Following are some of the ways for integrating the existing applications with the present invention:
• Web Service for Remote Portlets (WSRP): Third party or agent portlets are easily plugged into the Portal Server 14.using WSRP.
• Web Clipping: Parts of the web application are marked and are clipped to display in UI12.
• Web Application Integrator: Web application integrator enables integration of existing web applications into the respective user UI's.
• Other Content Integration: Other content integration are done using Hyperlink, IFRAME tag, File Serving, Web Proxy, Shared Database, Messaging and Remote procedure call.
The present invention needs to be integrated with core back end systems 22 like Policy Admin system, Actuarial systems, Rules, Claims, GL, Accounting, Finance and with shared systems like document management systems, file servers, messaging systems and the like to achieve the business functions. As most of the core systems 22 and other enterprise applications
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are on heterogeneous platforms, it makes the integration difficult. The present invention therefore supports APIs for these applications which can be invoked from service interface 18 to fetch or provide data to the UI 12.
Moreover, the insurance companies require integration with various other external systems such as payment gateway represented by block 36 of Figure 1, third party back office represented by block 38 of Figure 1, third party portal represented by block 40 of Figure 1 for their Business As Usual (BAU). Due to the heterogeneous nature of the external systems, many different integration points are required. The data exchange between the third party back office and client UI 12 happens through encrypted XML/ flat files which are up loaded or down loaded via secured FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server.
The payment gateway 36 is integrated online through secured connection for online payments. External feeds represented by block 30 of Figure 1 such as new feeds, market trends are merged through RSS/ATOM feeds of portal server 14.
Data View
The Data view depicts the UI 12 data requirements which are served from different units of the present invention.
LDAP holds the data for authentication and authorization including:
• organization hierarchy;
• users and their profiles; and
• user groups or roles.
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The generic data requirements for the present invention include:
• defining the hierarchy of various views;
• defining the themes, templates, credential slots, personalization rules, and policies for views;
• defining user specific data;
• defining the content repository which holds the content; and
• defining collaboration tools that are to be integrated with the present invention, and they have their own repository to hold the related content and user privileges.
The data requirements for the specialized UI 12 are listed below:
1. Public UI data requirements: The public UI holds static content which is retrieved from the web content management system. Public view data requirements include publishing marketing information, product information and organization specific news content on the public UI.
2. Customer UI data requirements:

• The present invention interfaces with enterprise content management systems to retrieve the application forms filled and uploaded by customers as part of policy requests or claim requests. The in-built portal search interfaces with the ECM system to retrieve the searched contents.
• The present invention also interfaces with the service interface 18 to retrieve the minimal information about the logged in policy holder including his profile, policy history, claims history, agent relationship and the like.
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• Interface with policy admin and claim system is also provided to
retrieve the details of the selected policy and claims respectively.
3. Partner UI data requirements:
• Partner UI interfaces with the agency management system to fetch the profile of sales force, to view individual performance and to view the commissions.
• Partner UI interfaces with ECM/Agent system of 24 to retrieve the commission statements and the campaign or marketing materials.
• Partner UI also interfaces with MIS (Management Information system) system of 24 to retrieve the sales details and renders in sales analytics portlet.
4. Employee UI data requirements:
• ECM of 24 holds the e-learning contents and also the authorization
information on authorizing and viewing the content. Employee UI
integrates with the service interface 18 and content centric
workflow system of ECM to retrieve the status for day to day
activities and also to work on allocated work.
5. Operations UI requirements:
• Operations UI interfaces with the service interface 18 and core insurance systems 22 to search for policy holder details and to view their profile, to view policy details and claims details, to retrieve and to view the transaction logs and also for business activities monitoring.
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• Operations UI also interfaces with the agency management system of 22 to search for sales force, to view commissions, campaigns, their status and the like.
• In addition, Operations UI interfaces with ECM systems of 24 for uploading or downloading and viewing the campaign or marketing materials.
6. BI UI data requirements: BI UI interfaces with MIS system to retrieve the analytical information.
Apart from taking inputs from the regular sources, the data view is also compatible to receive feeds from external systems and integration view of the present invention.
SECURITY VIEW
Accessing the system through different User Interfaces 12 and outside network exposes high security threat. Security can be imposed by providing authenticated and authorized access to the application and by monitoring and filtering the network traffic. External authentication is required to protect the system by intercepting all requests targeted for portal destinations. The authentication server 12 is implemented as a proxy server. The proxy server can be WebSEAL, Site Minder and the like. Alternatively, it can be implemented as a plug-in to the web server. The present invention provides different mechanisms in implementing security, which'are addressed below:
• The system is only available to users having appropriate permissions.
• The system supports authentication and authorization services which can be plugged into applications. Some of the ways of achieving
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authentication are through secured access and role based access as explained below:
a) The standard ways to supply the user ID and password to the system are through basic Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) authentication i.e. a web browser mechanism using a standard login dialog, or a HTTP form-based authentication i.e. a mechanism in which the server sends a customized authentication form which is presented to the user;
b) The present invention makes use of Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) login for form based authentication. The present invention also supports Secured Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) client authentication based on digital signatures and certificates including secure storage on smart cards, hardware-based one-time passwords such as the RSA SecurelD token, and various biometric mechanisms such as finger print verification, iris scanning, or speaker verification.
• The present" invention uses user registry for authentication and authorization. User registry can be an LDAP, or a custom registry.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, after successful authentication, the user's authorization privileges are checked and the view and contents are pulled based on the preconfigured role based access. The present invention integrates other enterprise information systems 24 and provides access to these systems through the service interface 18. In this scenario, to avoid repeated authentication (the back-end systems continue to do their own authentication and authorization) SSO can be used and the
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other enterprise applications 24 also provide standard modules for supporting SSO.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, if the enterprise applications have an identity manager deployed, the present invention accepts the authentication token and skips authentication.
Typically, the access to the present invention resources can be restricted on the basis of role. The administrator of the present invention can define the permissions for the. users on the basis of input from business. Access control mechanisms supported by vendors are provided by the present invention to secure the system, to provide content nodes (pages, label, urls), to provide document libraries, policies and personalization rules and the like.
The vendors' support for WSRP permits propagating authenticated user identity by leveraging the web services secure runtime available in the present invention. WSRP connections also leverage SSL to establish confidential communication channels and to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
According to the present invention, mechanisms have been provided to protect the core system from unauthorized tampering. The vendors support Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and its successor Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, which leverage a variety of cryptographic algorithms to implement security. Firewall filtering and monitoring of network traffic make it harder for unauthorized persons and programs to access any node in the protected network area.
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INFRASTRUCTURE VIEW
Referring to Figure 2, the infrastructure view illustrates a typical setup of the insurance interface system.
The IP address of the hardware or software load balancer can be mapped to the domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) so that the requests fall on to the load balancer. Load balancer routes the requests to cluster of web servers in the Data Management Zone (DMZ). Web server routes the request to a cluster of Portal servers in a round robin fashion. The request to or from the external applications are routed through the firewall. The preset invention utilizes authentication servers exposed to the Internet which take the service requests. In case of disastrous events, the DNS can be pointed to DR (Disaster Recovery) load balancer, to service customer and to reduce business disruption.
The technical advancements of the present invention include:
• providing a comprehensive insurance system for unifying all operations of the insurance organizations;
• providing a cost-effective insurance interface system which minimizes TCO (Total Cost of Ownership);
• providing a system which supports different stakeholders like agents, broker houses, policy holders, beneficiaries, re-insurers and third party applications;
• providing a single window for addressing the diverse requirements of the insurance stake holders;
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• increasing customer delight by enabling users to personalize their user interface and choose theme's and skin for the UI as per their choice;
• providing a system that supports multiple languages;
• providing a system that supports multiple currencies;
• providing self service capabilities to the policy holders using which they can raise queries, get real-time quotes as well as view their transaction history;
• providing SSO (Single Sign-On) facility so that users can login to collaboration systems from the present invention and vice-versa without having to re-authenticate themselves;
• providing tools like chat, blogs, feeds, wiki and the like for sharing information with other users of the system;
• providing a web-based system that can also be accessed on hand-held devices including mobile phones, PDA's and the like;
• providing a flexible system which can interface with external systems (for e.g. Payment gateways, WRAP ) as well any existing insurance systems (for e.g. Policy Admin, Accounting, General Ledger);
• providing a user-centric system that provides role based access to the functionalities of the system;
• providing a system which gives 360 degree of customer portfolio;
• providing a system which gives users a single point of customer contact and enhances the self service capabilities;
• providing a system which improves the reusability of existing insurance systems; and
• providing secure authentication through digital signatures and certificates including secure storage on smart cards, hardware-based
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one-time passwords such as the RSA SecurelD token, and various biometric mechanisms such as finger print verification, iris scanning, or speaker verification.
While considerable emphasis has been placed herein on the particular features of this invention, it will be appreciated that various modifications can be made, and that many changes can be made in the preferred embodiments without departing from the principles of the invention. These and other modifications in the nature of the invention or the preferred embodiments will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the disclosure herein, whereby it is to be distinctly understood that the foregoing descriptive matter is to be interpreted merely as illustrative of the invention and not as a limitation.
Dated this day of 22nd May 2009
NAlR .M.R
Of R.K.DEWAN&CO. APPLICANTS PATENT ATTORNEY
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