CN110555746B

CN110555746B - Car insurance quotation method

Info

Publication number: CN110555746B
Application number: CN201810554795.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 王景龙; 许巍晶; 李琦
Original assignee: eBaoTech Corp
Current assignee: eBaoTech Corp
Priority date: 2018-06-01
Filing date: 2018-06-01
Publication date: 2023-04-07
Anticipated expiration: 2038-06-01
Also published as: CN110555746A

Abstract

The invention provides a car insurance quotation method, which comprises the following steps: receiving information of a vehicle to be quoted; (b) Determining a vehicle to be matched corresponding to a vehicle to be quoted from a first vehicle database; (c) Matching a single vehicle matched with the vehicle to be matched from a second vehicle database; and (d) determining an insurance offer based on the single vehicle; wherein step (c) comprises: (c1) Determining a matching factor and a value of the matching factor for each vehicle; (c2) According to a preset calculation formula, calculating the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in the second vehicle database to obtain at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity; and (c 3) outputting one vehicle as the single vehicle. The method can rapidly, accurately and individually provide vehicle matching and vehicle insurance quotations obtained based on vehicle matching results, and is suitable for providing a bridge function between a third-party platform and each insurance company so as to meet the inquiry or price comparison requirements of consumers.

Description

Car insurance quotation method

Technical Field

The invention relates to a method and a system for screening out matched vehicles from a vehicle database and application thereof, in particular to a vehicle matching method, an insurance quotation method and a quotation comparison method in the insurance field.

Background

When a consumer inquires or insures about the car insurance on a third-party platform integrating multiple insurance companies, the platform first needs to match the car to be insured to the only car in the car database of one or more insurance companies selected by the insurer, so as to serve as the basis for offering offers by the insurance companies. The data volume, naming method, information integrity and information accuracy in the vehicle databases of different insurance companies are different, so that the platform needs to establish mapping relations between each record in the vehicle database of the platform and each record in the vehicle database of each insurance company respectively, so as to ensure that the vehicle to be insured can find the only matched record in the vehicle database of the insurance company.

However, the number of records in each vehicle database is as many as thousands, or even tens of thousands, and the data is updated on an irregular basis, making manual establishment of data mappings currently inefficient, lagging, and increasingly impractical. In addition, in some cases, if the vehicle database of a selected insurance company does not completely correspond to the vehicle type, and the insurance company does not want to directly refuse the vehicle to be insured, how to output the matching result becomes a problem. In the opposite case, if the selected insurance company needs to mask the insurance requirements of a particular vehicle, how to adjust the vehicle mapping to respond to such special requirements will also present challenges to the matching process.

In view of the above, there is a need for an improved vehicle matching method, and vehicle insurance offers and/or offer comparisons can be provided based on the method to solve one or more of the above problems in the prior art.

Disclosure of Invention

One aspect of the present invention provides a vehicle matching method, adapted to be executed on a computer, the vehicle matching involving establishing a mapping relationship between one or more vehicles in a first vehicle database and a single vehicle in a second vehicle database, respectively, the method comprising: (a) Determining a matching factor and a value of a matching factor for each vehicle in the first and second vehicle databases; (b) Determining a vehicle to be matched from the first vehicle database; (c) Calculating the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in the second vehicle database according to a preset calculation formula to obtain at least one vehicle with the similarity higher than the preset similarity, wherein the calculation formula is established on the basis of the weight of each matching factor and the value of each matching factor; (d) And outputting one vehicle from the at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity as the single vehicle so as to establish a mapping relation between the vehicle to be matched and the single vehicle.

Another aspect of the present invention provides a vehicle insurance quotation method, adapted to be executed on a computer, including: receiving information of a vehicle to be quoted; (b) Determining a vehicle to be matched corresponding to the vehicle to be quoted from a first vehicle database; (c) Matching a single vehicle matched with the vehicle to be matched from a second vehicle database; (d) determining an insurance offer based on the single vehicle; wherein step (c) comprises: (c1) Determining a matching factor and a value of a matching factor for each vehicle in the first and second vehicle databases; (c2) Calculating the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in the second vehicle database according to a preset calculation formula to obtain at least one vehicle with the similarity higher than the preset similarity, wherein the calculation formula is established on the basis of the weight of each matching factor and the value of each matching factor; (c3) And outputting one vehicle from the at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity as the single vehicle so as to establish a mapping relation between the vehicle to be matched and the single vehicle.

Yet another aspect of the present invention is to provide a method of simultaneously providing at least two car insurance offers, adapted to be executed on a computer, comprising: receiving information of a vehicle to be quoted; (b) Determining a vehicle to be matched corresponding to the vehicle to be quoted from a first vehicle database; (c) Matching a single vehicle matched with the vehicle to be matched from at least two second vehicle databases respectively; (d) determining a vehicle insurance offer based on the single vehicle; wherein step (c) comprises: (c1) Determining a matching factor and a value of the matching factor for each vehicle in the first vehicle database and each second vehicle database; (c2) According to a preset calculation formula, calculating the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in each second vehicle database to respectively obtain at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity, wherein the calculation formula is established on the basis of the weight of each matching factor and the value of each matching factor; (c3) And respectively outputting one vehicle from the at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity as the single vehicle so as to respectively establish a mapping relation between the vehicle to be matched and the single vehicle.

Yet another aspect of the invention provides a computer apparatus comprising a processor; and a memory for storing instructions adapted to be loaded by the processor to perform any of the methods described above.

Yet another aspect of the present invention provides a computer readable medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions adapted to be loaded by a processor to perform any of the methods described above.

The method calculates the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and the existing vehicles in the insurance company database based on the matching factor and the value of the matching factor so as to obtain the vehicles with the similarity higher than the preset similarity, and then outputs one vehicle from the obtained vehicles with the similarity higher than the preset similarity as the found matched vehicle based on the preset condition. The insurance company can thus provide an insurance quote based on the matching vehicle. The third party platform may provide a price comparison for the consumer based on the car insurance quotes provided by each insurance company. Therefore, the method provided by the invention can rapidly, accurately and individually provide vehicle matching and vehicle insurance quotes obtained based on the vehicle matching result, and is suitable for providing a bridge function between a third-party platform and each insurance company so as to meet the inquiry or price comparison requirements of consumers.

Drawings

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method for vehicle matching, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method of providing an insurance quote, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an exemplary method of providing a car insurance quote comparison, according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary system in accordance with one embodiment.

Detailed Description

The invention will now be described in detail with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, some of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The following description refers to the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals refer to the same or similar elements throughout the different views unless otherwise specified. The aspects described in the following exemplary embodiments do not represent all aspects of the present invention. Rather, these aspects are merely examples of systems and methods according to various aspects of the present invention as recited in the appended claims.

Referring to FIG. 1, a flow chart of an exemplary vehicle matching method of the present invention is shown. The method 100 begins at step 110 by determining a matching factor for each vehicle and its value. The determination of the matching factor and its value for a vehicle involves the vehicle database (usually the vehicle database of the platform) where the vehicle to be matched is located and the vehicle database (usually the vehicle database of the insurance company) where the matching vehicle is located. The matching factor refers to a factor used for similarity calculation, and may include one or more of a vehicle brand, a vehicle series, a vehicle type, a version of the vehicle type, a vehicle year of production, a vehicle body color, a seat number, and an additional configuration. These matching factors may be updated, e.g., added, deleted, or modified, to accommodate market changes. As one skilled in the art can appreciate, the more fully provided the vehicle information, the easier it is to match with records in the database, and thus a more matching vehicle is retrieved, providing a basis for outputting vehicles with high similarity. On the other hand, matching of vehicles also depends on the popularity and completeness of records in the database. Typically, a matching factor has a plurality of different values. For example, the model version has a comfort version, a jerky version, a luxury version, a honorable version, and the like. Thus, a vehicle can be determined by a plurality of matching factors and the values of the matching factors, and when the matching factors and the values thereof are sufficiently large, the type of the vehicle can be uniquely determined.

In step 120, the method 100 determines a vehicle to be matched. The vehicle to be matched is typically from a vehicle database of the platform. The process of determining may involve receiving information for a particular vehicle, and retrieving a corresponding vehicle from the vehicle database of the platform based on the information for the particular vehicle, thereby serving as the vehicle to be matched. Thus, the vehicle to be matched may be defined by a plurality of matching factors and the values of the factors.

Then, in step 130, the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in the vehicle database of the insurance company is calculated according to a predetermined calculation formula, so as to obtain at least one vehicle higher than the predetermined similarity. In the present invention, the calculation formula is established based on the weight of each of the matching factors and the value of each of the matching factors. One exemplary calculation formula is to calculate a weighted sum of the similarity of the values of the matching factors. Another exemplary calculation formula is to calculate a weighted average of the similarity of the values of the matching factors. In these exemplary calculation formulas, the person skilled in the art needs to determine the weight of each matching factor, for example, the weight of the brand of the vehicle, the series of the vehicle, the model of the vehicle may be higher than the weight of the year of production of the vehicle, the version of the model of the vehicle, the color of the body of the vehicle. The weight of the matching factor can be determined by a person skilled in the art through a limited number of tests. The calculation formula may be established based on the weight of the matching factor and its value.

Thus, in the exemplary method 100, the process of calculating the similarity is one-time, i.e., only one calculation is performed for each vehicle (based on the matching factor weights and their values), resulting in a similarity score for that vehicle, without the need to perform multiple iterations of similarity calculations. In this method, the predetermined similarity may be set artificially and can be changed according to actual situations. In some cases, the similarity can be adjusted in real time, and the number of the output similar vehicles is increased or decreased correspondingly in real time, so that a user can determine the number of the similar vehicles according to actual conditions. In this case, when an insurance company cannot provide a vehicle with a similarity higher than the predetermined similarity (for example, the vehicle database does not include the vehicle of the series), and the insurance company does not want to give up the opportunity for quotation, the vehicle of the similar series can be obtained by, for example, reducing the predetermined similarity, and output as a matching vehicle.

When more than one calculated similar vehicle above the predetermined similarity is present, in some embodiments, the resulting similar vehicles are ranked. In some embodiments, the calculated similarities are ranked from high to low. In other embodiments, the vehicle brand similarity is ranked from high to low.

In step 140, one vehicle is output as a matching vehicle from similar vehicles above a predetermined similarity according to a preset condition. The preset conditions may be varied as required. For example, in one embodiment, the preset condition may be a vehicle with the highest output similarity. In another embodiment, the preset condition may be a vehicle outputting a similarity of 100% (the calculated similarity may be higher than 100%). In another embodiment, the preset condition may be a vehicle whose output similarity is a specific value (e.g., 100).

Thus far, the general flow scheme of the exemplary method 100 has been described herein. The flow pattern is performed in the sequence from step 110 to step 140, so as to obtain a vehicle matched with the vehicle to be matched, and thus a mapping relation is established between two vehicles belonging to different vehicle databases. Thus, there may be a case where a plurality of vehicles in one database (platform database) are all matched to the same vehicle in another database (insurance company database). Moreover, it is foreseen that the above-mentioned mapping relationship may be established online or offline/offline.

In some cases, such as when an insurance company needs to mask insurance requirements for a particular vehicle, preset conditions may be set to request manual adjustment (step 150). In this case, the insurance company is required to manually intervene in the output of the matching vehicle, for example, delete the matching vehicle so as not to output any matching vehicle. For example, the preset condition may be that when a value of a certain matching factor (e.g. a specific brand, a specific train) of the vehicles to be matched is equal to a specific value, a manual adjustment is requested.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a method of providing insurance offers for third party platforms, an exemplary such method 200 being provided in FIG. 2. The method 200 begins at step 210 by receiving vehicle information to be quoted. Such information may include, for example, one or more of a license plate number, a vehicle brand, a vehicle series, a vehicle type, a vehicle year of production, a version of a vehicle type, a body color. In actual operation, the input of the information about the vehicle to be quoted may not depend on the entry of the above-mentioned data item by item. For example, in some cases, when entering the license plate number of the vehicle to be matched, the method 200 may automatically retrieve information such as the corresponding brand, series, model, year of production, version, body color, etc. of the vehicle from the official platform or other platform.

The method 200 then determines a vehicle to be matched corresponding to the vehicle to be quoted from the vehicle database of the platform, thereby providing a basis for subsequently determining a corresponding matched vehicle in the insurance company database (step 220). Step 220 also involves a vehicle matching process, but since the vehicle database of the platform typically encompasses almost all vehicle models on the market, the data is comprehensive and extensive, and the consumer can select a record matching the vehicle to be quoted from a plurality of vehicle model options provided by the platform based on the entered vehicle information to be quoted, making the matching process simpler and also known in the art. The invention does not involve the matching process of step 220, but the result of this step is the determination of the only vehicle to be matched from the platform database.

The method 200 then proceeds to

steps

230 and 240, which are substantially the same as

steps

130 and 140 of the method 100 and therefore will not be described in detail. The result of step 240 is that the output matches the vehicle. The insurance company may then provide the vehicle insurance quote based on the outputted matching vehicles. The output matching vehicle is generally defined by a matching factor and its value, and providing the insurance quote based on the determined vehicle is known in the art and may be accomplished by a variety of existing methods, such as by a computer, and will not be described in detail herein.

The insurance company then provides the car insurance quote to the platform for presentation to the consumer in step 260.

Yet another aspect of the invention relates to providing a vehicle insurance offer comparison service for a consumer that is implemented in dependence upon the exemplary method shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary method 300 of providing insurance offers for the same vehicle from multiple insurance companies. In practical situations, the brand names, the train names and other information of the same vehicle in the vehicle databases of different insurance companies are different, so it becomes very important to map the vehicles to be quoted with the matching vehicles in the vehicle databases of the insurance companies respectively. In the illustrated method 300, the platform first receives vehicle information to be quoted (step 310). As described in step 210 of method 200, the vehicle information may include, for example, one or more of a license plate number, a vehicle brand, a vehicle series, a vehicle type, a vehicle year of production, a version of a vehicle type, a body color. In actual operation, the input of the information about the vehicle to be quoted may not depend on the entry of the above-mentioned data item by item. For example, in some cases, when entering the license plate number of the vehicle to be matched, the method 300 may automatically retrieve information such as the corresponding brand of the vehicle, the series of the vehicle, the model of the vehicle, the year of production of the vehicle, the version of the model of the vehicle, the color of the body, etc. from an official platform or other platform.

In step 320, the process retrieves a corresponding vehicle from the vehicle database of the platform based on the information for the particular vehicle as described in step 220, thereby serving as the vehicle to be matched. Thus, the vehicle to be matched may be defined by a plurality of matching factors and values of the factors. The vehicle database of the platform typically encompasses almost all vehicle models on the market, and thus the data is comprehensive and extensive, and the consumer can select a record matching the vehicle to be quoted from a plurality of vehicle model options provided by the platform based on the entered vehicle information to be quoted, thus making the matching process simpler and also known in the art.

The platform then matches the vehicle to be matched with the vehicle databases of different insurance companies. In step 332, the platform matches the vehicle to be matched with the vehicle database of the first insurance company to finally determine the vehicle insurance quote 1. In step 334, the platform matches the vehicle to be matched with the vehicle database of the second insurance company to finalize the vehicle insurance quote 2. Similarly, in step 336, the platform matches the vehicle to be matched with the vehicle database of the nth insurance company to ultimately determine the vehicle insurance quote N. The number of insurance company databases to match may depend on the choice of the consumer, or the platform may select multiple insurance companies by default. Steps 332 to 336 may be performed simultaneously or sequentially.

Finally, in step 340, the platform receives the car insurance offers 1, 2.

Thus, it is expected that the basis for the insurance company's offer and the consumer's comparison of the offers will depend on the correct matching of the vehicle to be matched with the vehicle in the insurance company's vehicle database. The vehicle matching method can accurately and timely match the only vehicle from each insurance company database, thereby providing a basis for the insurance company quotation.

In some application scenarios (such as real-time online quotation), the quotation does not involve manual intervention of vehicle matching results, so that the vehicle matching process can be established in advance through offline, and the matching results (namely, mapping relationships) can be read when the quotation or price comparison is carried out in real time, thereby realizing efficient, quick and full-automatic quotation or quotation comparison.

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of a vehicle matching system 400, in accordance with some disclosed embodiments. It is contemplated that the present invention provides the same insurance quote system or insurance quote alignment, which can be implemented in the same or similar manner. The system 400 may include a processor 421, input/output (I/O) devices 422, memory 423, storage 426, database 427, and a display 428.

Processor 421 may be one or more conventional processing devices, such as a Pentium ™ series microprocessor made by Intel @, or a Turion ™ series microprocessor made by AMD @. Processor 421 may include a single core processor system or a multi-core processor system capable of parallel processing. For example, processor 421 may be a single-core processor with virtual processing techniques. In some embodiments, processor 421 may utilize a logical processor to execute and control multiple processes simultaneously. The processor 421 may execute virtual machine technology, or other similar known technologies, to enable execution, control, enable, manipulate, store, etc. of a plurality of software processes, applications, programs, etc. In another embodiment, processor 421 includes a multi-core processor configuration (e.g., dual or quad core) configured to provide parallel processing functionality, allowing system 400 to execute multiple processes simultaneously. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that other types of processor configurations may be implemented to provide the functionality described herein.

Memory 423 may include one or more storage devices configured to store instructions used by processor 421 to perform the functions of the disclosed embodiments. For example, memory 423 may be configured with one or more software instructions, such as instructions 424, that when executed by processor 421, may perform one or more operations. The disclosed embodiments are not limited to a single program or computer configured to perform specialized tasks. For example, memory 423 may include a single instruction 424 that performs the functions of system 400, or instruction 424 may include multiple instructions.

Memory 423 may also store data 425, which data 425 may reflect any type of information in any form to perform the functions in the disclosed embodiments. For example, data 425 may include metadata of brand names related to similarity calculations, as well as other data that enables processor 421 to perform the functions in the disclosed embodiments.

I/O device 422 may be configured to allow data to be received and/or transmitted. I/O device 422 may include one or more digital and/or analog communication devices that allow system 400 to communicate with other machines and devices. The system 400 may also include one or more databases 427 or be communicatively coupled to one or more databases 427 via a network. For example, database 427 may include an Oracle ™ database, a Sybase ™ database, or other relational or non-relational databases, such as a Hadoop sequence file, HBase, or Cassandra. In an exemplary embodiment, database 427 may store data of matching factors used to calculate the similarity. This metadata may be created by the user and stored in database 427, for example.

The present invention also provides a computer readable medium having stored thereon computer readable instructions adapted to be loaded by a processor to perform any of the vehicle damage assessment methods described herein. The computer-readable medium may include a removable medium as a package medium including a magnetic disk (including a flexible disk), an optical disk (including a CD-ROM (compact disc-read only memory) and a DVD (digital versatile disc)), a magneto-optical disk (including an MD (mini disc)), or a semiconductor memory. In some embodiments, the computer readable medium resides, for example, in an application store to provide an application, for example, a mobile terminal application, that encodes any one of the methods illustrated in the present invention.

Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. The scope of the invention is intended to cover any variations, uses, or adaptations of the invention following, in general, the principles of the invention, and including such departures from the present disclosure as come within known or customary practice within the art to which the invention pertains. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims.

It will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements described above and illustrated in the drawings and that various modifications and changes can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. The scope of the invention is to be defined only by the claims.

Claims

1. A vehicle insurance quotation method, adapted to be executed on a computer, comprising:

(a) Receiving information of vehicles to be quoted;

(b) Determining a vehicle to be matched corresponding to the vehicle information to be quoted from a first vehicle database, wherein the first vehicle database is a vehicle database of a third-party platform;

(c) Matching a single matched vehicle matched with the vehicle to be matched from a second vehicle database; wherein the second vehicle database is a vehicle database of a single insurance company, the first vehicle database comprising a plurality of the second vehicle databases; and

(d) Determining an insurance offer based on the single matching vehicle;

wherein step (c) comprises:

(c1) Determining a matching factor and a value of a matching factor of a vehicle to be matched in the first vehicle database and a matching factor and a value of a matching factor of each vehicle in the second vehicle database, wherein the matching factors are used for indicating vehicle information of the vehicle to be matched;

(c2) Calculating the similarity between the vehicle to be matched and each vehicle in the second vehicle database according to a preset calculation formula to obtain at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity, wherein the calculation formula is established based on the weight of each matching factor and the value of each matching factor, and the calculation formula is a weighted average value or a weighted sum of the similarity of the values of each matching factor; and

(c3) And outputting one vehicle from the at least one vehicle higher than the preset similarity as the single matching vehicle to establish a mapping relation between the vehicle to be matched and the single matching vehicle.

2. The insurance quote method of claim 1, wherein the match factors include one or more of vehicle brand, vehicle series, vehicle type, version of vehicle type, vehicle year of production, body color, seat number, additional configuration.

3. The vehicle insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein one of the matching factors has a plurality of different values, and the matching factor or the value thereof can be updated.

4. The insurance quote method according to claim 1, wherein the vehicle to be matched and the single matching vehicle are defined by a plurality of matching factors and values of the factors, respectively.

5. The insurance quote method of claim 2, wherein the brand, series or model of the vehicle is weighted higher than the year of production of the vehicle, the version of the model or the color of the body.

6. The car insurance quote method of claim 1, wherein the calculation is done only once.

7. The vehicle insurance quote method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined similarity can be set manually.

8. The vehicle insurance quote method of claim 7, wherein the predetermined similarity is adjustable in real time.

9. The vehicle insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein the calculated similar vehicles above the predetermined similarity are ranked when there is more than one similar vehicle.

10. The insurance quote method according to claim 9, wherein the calculated similarity is ranked from high to low.

11. The vehicle insurance quote method of claim 9, wherein the vehicle brand similarity is ranked from high to low.

12. The vehicle insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined similarity is a vehicle whose output similarity is the highest.

13. The vehicle insurance quote method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined similarity is a vehicle whose output similarity is 80%.

14. The vehicle insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined similarity is a vehicle whose output similarity is a specific value.

15. The car insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein after the step (d), further comprising a step (e 1): and manually adjusting the output single matched vehicle.

16. The insurance quote method of claim 15, wherein the manual adjustment includes deleting the output single matching vehicle.

17. The vehicle insurance quote method of claim 1, wherein the receiving pending quote vehicle information is automatically obtained from an official platform according to the license plate number.

18. The car insurance quotation method according to claim 1, further comprising a step (e 2) after step (d): the car insurance offer is provided to the platform for presentation to the consumer.

19. The insurance quotation method according to claim 1, wherein the step (c) is performed in advance on-line.

20. A computer apparatus for vehicle insurance quotes, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing vehicle insurance quote instructions, the instructions adapted to be loaded by a processor to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 19.

21. A computer readable medium storing computer readable instructions adapted to be loaded by a processor to perform the method of any of claims 1 to 19.