Patent Application Titled “Determining An Event” Published Online (USPTO 20230289891): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 OCT 02 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx journalists, a patent application by the inventors Dewall, Joel T. (Libertyville, IL, US); Griffin, Dennis M. (Chicago, IL, US); Ismaili, Alinawaz (Skokie, IL, US); Kwan, Randolph (Wheeling, IL, US), filed on February 27, 2023, was made available online on September 14, 2023.

The assignee for this patent application is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “In current systems, the time between an insurance event and the response to the event, such as the dispatch of an adjustor to handle the event, or the initiation a claim, can be lengthy. In some cases, the user or owner of a property may be dealing with an emergency and may not have time to lookup contact information for an insurance provider in order to make contact with the insurance provider. In some cases, a user may be away from a property and not find out about an event until returning.

“Therefore, improved systems and methods to address these and other shortcomings in the art are desired.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent application, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to apparatuses, computer implemented methods and computer readable media for determining a nature of an event in a geographical location, for example, at a user’s home, based on receiving a signal from a device located in the geographical location and comparing a property of the signal with information from an insurance database about previous events associated with the geographical location;

“In accordance with aspects of the disclosure, one or more of several actions may be initiated, based on the nature of the event, for example, various personnel may be dispatched to the location, devices at the location may be controlled and/or an insurance claim may be initiated.

“Of course, the methods and systems of the above-referenced embodiments may also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1.-20. (canceled)

“21. A method comprising: receiving, from a user device or a sensor located in a first building at a first geographical location, a signal indicative of a current insurance event associated with the first building; identifying, by a computer processor, whether one or more previous insurance events has an attribute in common with the current insurance event, the one or more previous insurance events being associated with a second building at a second geographical location that is different from the first geographical location; determining a nature of the current insurance event, based at least in part on the identifying that the one or more previous insurance events has the attribute in common with the current insurance event; and in response to determining the nature of the current insurance event, directing, by the computer processor based on the determined nature of the current insurance event, a controller in the first geographical location to control one or more of a mechanical function or an electrical function of the first building, wherein the one or more of the mechanical function or the electrical function comprises one or more of: locking a door of the first building, unlocking the door of the first building, shutting off water to the first building, initiating an audio alarm device in the first building, turning on a light in the first building, or turning off the light in the first building.

“22. The method of claim 21, further comprising: querying a database for information regarding the one or more previous insurance events associated with the second building at the second geographical location, wherein the information regarding the one or more previous insurance events comprises at least one insurance claim associated with the second building.

“23. The method of claim 21, wherein the attribute comprises a time of day of an occurrence of the at least one of the one or more previous insurance events.

“24. The method of claim 21, further comprising: automatically initiating an insurance claim comprising information of the current insurance event.

“25. The method of claim 21, further comprising: notifying personnel of the current insurance event, wherein the personnel comprises one or more of: a repair person, an insurance adjustor, an emergency responder, safety personnel, a home owner, or a neighbor.

“26. The method of claim 21, wherein the first geographical location comprises an address, GPS coordinates, a zip code, a neighborhood or a street.

“27. The method of claim 21, wherein the insurance event comprises an abnormal operation condition of the first building, and the abnormal operation condition comprises one or more of: a faulty water heater, roof damage, a false alarm, or a break-in.

“28. The method of claim 21, further comprising: communicating with a data collection device at the first geographical location; and collecting information for use in the determining the nature of the current insurance event.

“29. The method of claim 1, wherein the user device or the sensor comprises a smoke detector, a moisture detector, a microphone, a roof monitor, or a home security system.

“30. The method of claim 29, wherein the user device or the sensor comprises the smoke detector, and wherein the current insurance event of the first building is a fire.

“31. An apparatus comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to: receive, from a user device or a sensor located in a first building at a first geographical location, a signal indicative of a current insurance event associated with the first building; identify whether one or more previous insurance events has an attribute in common with the current insurance event, the one or more previous insurance events being associated with a second building at a second geographical location that is different from the first geographical location; determine a nature of the current insurance event, based at least in part on the identifying that the one or more previous insurance events has the attribute in common with the current insurance event; and in response to determining the nature of the current insurance event, directing, based on the determined nature of the current insurance event, a controller in the first geographical location to control one or more of a mechanical function or an electrical function of the first building, wherein the one or more of the mechanical function or the electrical function comprises one or more of: locking a door of the first building, unlocking the door of the first building, shutting off water to the first building, initiating an audio alarm device in the first building, turning on a light in the first building, or turning off the light in the first building.

“32. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising: querying a database for information regarding the one or more previous insurance events associated with the second building at the second geographical location, wherein the information regarding the one or more previous insurance events comprises at least one insurance claim.

“33. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to collect information from a data collection device at the first geographical location, wherein the data collection device comprises: a smoke detector, a moisture detector, a camera, a microphone, a roof monitor, or a home security system.

“34. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to determine the current insurance event condition of the first building.

“35. The apparatus of claim 34, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to automatically initiate an insurance claim based on the current insurance event of the first building.

“36. The apparatus of claim 34, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to notify a home owner or safety personnel of the current insurance event of the first building.

“37. A system comprising: a first device and a second device, wherein the second device is located in a first building at a first geographical location, wherein the first device comprises: one or more first processors; and first memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more first processors, cause the first device to: receive, from the second device, a signal indicative of a current insurance event associated with the first building; identify whether one or more previous insurance events has an attribute in common with the current insurance event, the one or more previous insurance events being associated with a second building at a second geographical location that is different from the first geographical location; determine a nature of the current insurance event, based at least in part on the identifying that the one or more previous insurance events has the attribute in common with the current insurance event of the first building; and in response to determining the nature of the current insurance event, directing, based on the determined nature of the current insurance event, a controller in the first building to control one or more of a mechanical function or an electrical function of the first building, wherein the one or more of the mechanical function or the electrical function comprises one or more of: locking a door of the first building, unlocking the door of the first building, shutting off water to the first building, initiating an audio alarm device in the first building, turning on a light in the first building, or turning off the light in the first building, and wherein the second device is a user device or a sensor comprising: one or more second processors; and second memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more second processors, cause the second device to: send the signal indicative of the current insurance event.

“38. The system of claim 37, further comprising: querying a database for information regarding the one or more previous insurance events associated with the second building at the second geographical location, wherein the information regarding the one or more previous insurance events comprises at least one insurance claim.

“39. The system of claim 37, further comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more first processors, cause the first device to automatically initiate an insurance claim comprising information of the current insurance event.

“40. The system of claim 37, wherein the second device comprises a smoke detector, a moisture detector, or a roof monitor.”

For more information, see this patent application: Dewall, Joel T.; Griffin, Dennis M.; Ismaili, Alinawaz; Kwan, Randolph. Determining An Event. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230289891, filed February 27, 2023 and posted September 14, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230289891)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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