Technique for generating insurance premium quotes by multiple insurance vendors in response to a single user request

Abstract

A method and system for providing a user with insurance premium estimates from insurance providers for an insurance product. Insurance providers for the insurance product are selected by the user. Conditions input indicating conditions effecting the insurance premiums are transmitted from the user's computer to a service computer. The service computer converts the conditions input into a standard format suitable to a common interface and sends the converted conditions input to the user's computer. The converted conditions input is sent from the user's computer to the selected insurance providers without passing through or interacting with the service computer while being sent from the user's computer to the selected insurance providers. The insurance premium estimates from the selected insurance providers are received by the user's computer and displayed on a display unit of the user's computer in accordance with the conditions input and the selected insurance providers.

1 . A method for providing a user with insurance premium estimates from insurance providers for an insurance product, said method comprising: 
 receiving a selection by the user of insurance providers to which to submit a request for the insurance premium estimates;    transmitting conditions input from a user's computer of the user to a service computer, said conditions input indicating conditions which may effect the insurance premium;    converting the conditions input into a standard format suitable to a common interface, wherein the converting step is performed by the service computer    receiving, by the user's computer from the service computer, the converted conditions input having a standard format;    after said receiving the converted conditions input, directly sending the conditions input in the standard format from the user's computer to the selected insurance providers such that the conditions input in the standard format does not pass through or interact with the service computer while being sent from the user's computer to the selected insurance providers;    receiving, by the user's computer, the insurance premium estimate from each of the selected insurance providers; and    displaying the received premium estimates results on a display unit of the user's computer in accordance with the conditions input and the selected insurance providers.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: 
 embedding by the service computer an address of a web site of each selected insurance provider in data used for subsequently displaying the received insurance premium estimates on the display unit; and    receiving the embedded address of the website of each selected insurance provider, wherein said directly sending the conditions input is performed after said embedding, and wherein said displaying the received premium estimates on the display unit is based on the embedded address of the website of each selected insurance provider.    
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , 
 wherein the received premium estimates had been calculated by the selected insurance providers based on the conditions input, and    wherein said receiving the insurance premium estimates comprises directly receiving the insurance premium estimates such that the insurance premium estimates received by the user's computer from the selected insurance providers do not pass through or interact with the service computer while being transmitted from the selected insurance providers to the user's computer.    
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the selected insurance providers comprise a plurality of insurance providers, and wherein the calculated premium estimates from the selected insurance providers are simultaneously displayed in separate frames on a single display screen of the display unit.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the common interface is a common gateway interface (CGI).  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising printing the received premium estimates.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein said directly sending the conditions is performed by a browser at the user's computer, wherein the service computer is coupled to the user's computer by a network, and wherein the selected insurance providers are coupled to the user's computer by the network.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 7 , wherein the network is the Internet.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the selected insurance providers comprise at least two insurance providers, and wherein said receiving the insurance premium estimates comprises receiving the insurance premium estimates from each selected insurance provider in accordance with a timing that is asynchronous with receiving the insurance premium estimates from each other selected insurance provider.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the selected insurance providers comprise at least two insurance providers, and wherein said receiving the insurance premium estimates comprises receiving the insurance premium estimates from each selected insurance provider in accordance with a timing that is synchronous with receiving the insurance premium estimates from each other selected insurance provider.  
   
   
       11 . A system comprising at least one processor and a computer readable memory device coupled to the at least one processor, said memory device containing program code that when executed by the at least one processor implement the method of  claim 1 .  
   
   
       12 . A computer program product, comprising a computer usable storage medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code containing instructions that when executed by at least one processor of a computer system implement the method of  claim 1.