Retail price hedging
View Patent ↗Retail consumers may hedge the price of volatile commodities such as gasoline via the advance purchase of a policy, which may be represented by a hedge card. The card may be priced to cover uncertainty in the price of the commodity over a defined future period, plus a small profit for the card issuer, optionally plus a pre-paid residual cash value. The card may permit the purchase of a defined amount of the commodity at a price not to exceed a defined ceiling over the defined future period. The card issuer may contact with one or more fuel providers to apportion the risks and benefits of the hedge card. In the alternative, the card issuer may contract with the consumer only, and may rebate commodity purchase amounts in excess of the defined price ceiling directly to the hedge card holder.
1. A method for providing price insurance for retail consumers of a product, the method configured for execution on a computing device, the method comprising:
defining one or more price insurance policies comprising account information for respective retail consumers of a product and insurance policy limits comprising a defined product, a defined price ceiling for the product, and a defined limit on quantity of product covered;
receiving at a computing device from a point-of-sale terminal in communication with a product distribution device purchase information concerning a retail purchase transaction for the product by an insured one of the plurality of retail consumers, the purchase information comprising an account identifier, a measurement of product quantity purchased or to be purchased, and a retail price for the product;
determining by the computing device whether the retail price exceeds the price ceiling of the insurance policy associated with the one of the plurality of retail consumers; and
in response to determining that the retail price for the product information exceeds the price ceiling of the insurance policy associated with the one of the plurality of retail consumers, transmitting from the computing device to the point-of-sale terminal a signal configured to cause the point-of-sale terminal to adjust the retail price to an adjusted price not greater than the price ceiling.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the price insurance policies a indicate respective monetary premium amounts to be paid by respective retail consumers.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising defining the one or more insurance policy limits each comprising a defined period of time covered.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving purchase information regarding transactions of respective retail consumers from a plurality of point-of-sale terminals configured for dispensing the product to the retail consumers.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising providing signals to respective point-of-sale terminals configured to cause the point-of-sale terminals to dispense the product at prices not exceeding the defined price ceilings of the respective insurance policies of the retail consumers.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising maintaining credit accounts for purchase of the product at a price not exceeding the price ceiling, each of the credit accounts established for a corresponding one of the plurality of retail consumers in association with the price insurance policies.
7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising tracking credit cards issued to the plurality of retail consumers, the credit cards configured for credit purchases of the product and for use in tracking the purchase information by providing a purchaser account identifier at points-of-sale.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising maintaining a plurality of prepaid purchase accounts for purchase of the product at a price not exceeding the price ceiling, each of the purchase accounts established for a corresponding one of the plurality of retail consumers in association with the price insurance policies.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising tracking debit cards issued to the plurality of retail consumers, the debit cards configured for debit purchases of the product and for use in tracking the purchase information by providing a purchaser account identifier at points-of-sale.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising defining the price ceiling to be a fixed price for a defined period.