Patent ID: 8280813

Claim:
A system of providing overdraft protection for financial accounts, the system comprising: a computer readable financial institution database configured to store financial account data for at least one financial account of at least one user at a financial institution; a financial institution computer processor coupled to the financial institution database, with the financial institution computer processor being configured to: update and maintain financial account records stored in said financial institution database for the at least one financial account of the at least one user at the financial institution; update and maintain at least one overdraft account linked to the at least one financial account of the at least one user at the financial institution; receive information establishing an occurrence of one of a selected plurality of adverse events that has been experienced by the user; and based upon the receipt of the experience by the user of the occurrence of one of a selected plurality of adverse events, generating an adverse event occurrence signal; a computer readable debt protection program database configured to store debt protection account data for the at least one financial account of the least one user at the financial institution; and a debt protection program processor coupled to the debt protection program database, with the debt protection program processor being configured to: receive information from the financial institution computer processor regarding the overdraft account linked to the at least one financial account of the at least one user at the financial institution; receive payment from the financial institution for the overdraft protection of the at least one overdraft account linked to the at least one financial account of the at least one user at the financial institution; receive the adverse event occurrence signal from the financial institution computer processor regarding the experience by the user of the occurrence of one of a selected plurality of adverse events; and in response to receipt of the event occurrence signal from the financial institution computer processor, sending at least one payment to the financial institution to be credited to the at least one overdraft account linked to the at least one financial account of the at least one user at the financial institution.