Patent ID: 7904318

Claim:
A method of estimating liability for a vehicle accident, comprising: providing to a computer system a real set of characteristics of a real vehicle accident involving two or more vehicles, wherein the real set of characteristics of the real vehicle accident comprises: an accident type for the real vehicle accident, wherein the accident type for the real vehicle accident specifies a relationship between two or more vehicles' paths on a roadway at the time of the real vehicle accident; and a roadway configuration for the real vehicle accident, wherein the computer system is configured to access a memory, and wherein the memory comprises sets of characteristics for past or theoretical vehicle accidents, wherein the past vehicle accidents are accidents that actually occurred in the past, wherein the theoretical vehicle accidents are accidents that might occur, wherein the set of characteristics for at least one of the past or theoretical vehicle accidents comprises: an accident type for the past or theoretical vehicle accident, wherein the accident type for the past or theoretical vehicle accident specifies a relationship between two or more vehicles' paths on a roadway at the time of the past or theoretical vehicle accident; and a roadway configuration for the past or theoretical vehicle accident; wherein each of at least two of the sets of characteristics for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents is associated with at least one base liability; the computer system automatically determining a right of way in the real vehicle accident from at least one of: the accident type for the real vehicle accident; or the roadway configuration for the real vehicle accident, and from at least one other characteristic of the real set of characteristics for the real vehicle accident; the computer system correlating the determined right of way for the real vehicle accident and the real set of characteristics for the real vehicle accident to a right of way for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents and to the sets of characteristics for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents to determine a set of characteristics from the past or theoretical vehicle accidents that most nearly matches the real set of characteristics for the real vehicle accident; and the computer system estimating a base liability of an insured party associated with at least one of the vehicles in the real vehicle accident based on the correlation by the computer system of the determined right of way for the real vehicle accident and the real set of characteristics for the real vehicle accident to a right of way for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents and the sets of characteristics for the theoretical vehicle accidents, wherein the computer system estimating a base liability comprises the computer system extracting, from a database table, at least one base liability associated with the nearest matching set of characteristics from among the sets of characteristics for the past or theoretical vehicle accidents.