CONTROVERSIES

Health insurance

Health insurance, which is coverage for individuals to protect them against medical costs, is a highly charged and political issue in the United States, which does not have socialized health coverage. In theory, the market for health insurance provision should function in a manner similar to other insurance coverages, but the skyrocketing cost of health coverage has disrupted markets around the globe, but perhaps most glaringly in the US. Please see health insurance for a discussion of this category.

Patents

New insurance products can now be protected from copying with a business method patent . This may lead to the more rapid introduction of new insurance products as insurance companies will invest more heavily in new product development if they can be reasonably assured that their patents will keep those products from being copied.

A recent example of a new insurance product that is patented is "Pay As You Drive" auto insurance . It was invented and patented by Progressive Auto Insurance (US patent 5,797,134). The basic idea is that a GPS and cell phone are placed in a car and the mileage driven is recorded and reported to the insurance company. The amount a driver pays in insurance will depend on how many miles are driven along with other factors, such as speed.

Many independent inventors are in favor of patenting new insurance products since it gives them protection when they bring new insurance products to market.

Many insurance executives are opposed to patenting insurance products because it means that they need to do a patent search before copying a competitor's new product.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance