Patent Issued for Insurance claim processing in secure personal and financial information storage and chatbot access by trusted individuals (USPTO 11948198): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2024 APR 19 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Banerjee, Shreeti (Bloomington, IL, US), Breitweiser, Edward W. (Bloomington, IL, US), Ingrum, Larry (Mahomet, IL, US), Steigerwald, Brian A. (Bloomington, IL, US), filed on November 4, 2020, was published online on April 2, 2024.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11948198 is State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Spouses, executors, beneficiaries and other trusted individuals often face difficult and time-consuming tasks collecting information and documentation used to close decedents’ estates. There remains a need for systems and methods to improve this process. Systems and methods of these types should provide a high degree of security.

“Conventional estate handling techniques may be inefficient, awkward, time consuming, inaccurate, timely, and/or frustrating for family members. Conventional estate handling techniques may have other drawbacks as well.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present embodiments may include a user interface, such as a chatbot (text or voice), which assists a person in gathering and electronically storing documents and other information which would be useful to someone trying to settle their affairs when they pass away or become incompetent. Documents may be stored in a secure electronic storage area, and may be automatically obtained or manually scanned. Information such as what type funeral, where keys are, passwords to electronic accounts, etc. may also be stored. The chatbot may help walk a person through the process and reminds them to deal with steps not taken yet. One or more people, such as family members, children, or beneficiaries, may be given electronic access permission. A chatbot avatar or doppelganger may allow the estate handler to ask questions and gather information from the storage in a simulated chat with the deceased, and facilitate estate handling functionality.

“In one aspect, a computer-implemented method of detecting insurance-related events and handling insurance claims is provided. The method may comprise: with a policyholder’s permission and affirmative consent, building, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, a policyholder profile and/or online policyholder account for the policyholder based upon policyholder input, the policyholder profile including characteristics of the policyholder and policy information; accepting, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, digital assets uploaded by the policyholder, and associating the digital assets with the policyholder profile; upon the policyholder selecting a beneficiary, contacting, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, the beneficiary via electronic communication, and then granting the beneficiary electronic access to the policyholder account via a beneficiary app; receiving by one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, notification of the event associated with the policyholder; sending, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, an electronic notification of the event to the beneficiary; initiating, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, a claim based upon the policy and/or the event; and one or more of (1) displaying, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, the status of the claim via the beneficiary app, or (2) verbally relaying the status of the claim to the beneficiary via the beneficiary app or chatbot, or (3) allowing, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, the beneficiary to track the status of the claim via the beneficiary app to facilitate handling claims.

“In another aspect of the computer-implemented method, the digital assets may include financial statements, financial account statements, tax information and returns, and/or one or more deeds. In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise digital assets including social media content, telephone voice recordings, and/or emails associated with the policyholder. In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise digital assets fed into a machine learning module, via one or more processors and/or associated transceivers, to create a virtual avatar with a personality similar to the personality of the policyholder. In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise a machine learning algorithm module employing supervised or unsupervised machine learning techniques.

“In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise a beneficiary app that allows the beneficiary to have a conversation with the avatar of the policyholder. In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise digital assets including one or more passwords to one or more online accounts of the policyholder.

“In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise a claim relating to a life insurance or health insurance policy. In another aspect, the computer-implemented method of any or all of the previous aspects may comprise a claim relating to a homeowners or auto insurance policy.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method of detecting an insurance-related event and handling insurance claims, the method comprising: with a policyholder’s permission and affirmative consent, building, via at least one or more processors and associated transceivers, a policyholder profile and online policyholder account for the policyholder based upon policyholder input, wherein the policyholder profile includes policy information; receiving, via one or more processors and associated transceivers, digital assets uploaded by the policyholder, and associating the digital assets with the policyholder profile, wherein the digital assets include one or more of social media content, telephone voice recordings, or emails; building, by the one or more processors using a machine learning module, a chatbot avatar of the policyholder based upon the digital assets; upon the policyholder selecting a beneficiary, contacting, via the one or more processors and associated transceivers, the beneficiary that is different than the policyholder via electronic communication, and then providing the beneficiary with notice that they have electronic access to the policyholder account via a beneficiary app; providing, by the one or more processors and associated transceivers, the beneficiary app to the beneficiary, wherein the beneficiary app operates on a computing device associated with the beneficiary and includes a chatbot interface facilitating conversations with the chatbot avatar of the policyholder by one or both of text or speech; receiving by the one or more processors and associated transceivers, information associated with the policyholder; determining, by the one or more processors and associated transceivers, the insurance-related event based upon the information associated with the policyholder; sending, via the beneficiary app via the at least one of one or more processors and associated transceivers in response to the determination of the insurance-related event, an electronic notification of the insurance-related event to the beneficiary; initiating, automatically via the one or more processors and associated transceivers in response to the determination of the insurance-related event, a claim based upon the policy and the insurance-related event; and relaying the status of the claim to the beneficiary via the beneficiary app through the chatbot interface via the chatbot avatar of the policyholder by one or both of text or speech.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets include financial statements, financial account statements, tax information and returns, and/or one or more deeds.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the machine learning module employs supervised or unsupervised machine learning techniques.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the chatbot interface of the beneficiary app operates to facilitate a conversation between the beneficiary and the chatbot avatar of the policyholder.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets include one or more passwords to one or more online accounts of the policyholder.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the claim relates to a life insurance or health insurance policy.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the claim relates to a homeowners or auto insurance policy.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets include periodic bills.

“9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the insurance-related event is a sickness, illness, or passing away of the policyholder.

“10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising receiving documents, such as a death certificate or doctor’s statements, and uploading the documents via one or more processors and associated transceivers to the online policyholder account.

“11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising, via the one or more processors and associated transceivers, via the beneficiary app through the chatbot interface, providing the beneficiary with information about the status of the claim via a conversation with the chatbot avatar, and providing answers to questions regarding the claim verbally.

“12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising, via the one or more processors and associated transceivers, via the beneficiary app through the chatbot interface, verbally informing the beneficiary of wishes of the policyholder for various assets via a conversation with the chatbot avatar of the policyholder.

“13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising, via the one or more processors and associated transceivers, guiding the policyholder thru the process of one or both of creating a will or identifying assets to be transferred to various beneficiaries via a chatbot.

“14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising, via a chatbot, posing several questions to the policyholder to build a baseline personality for the chatbot avatar of the policyholder.

“15. The computer-implemented method of wherein the insurance-related event is a vehicle event; and one or both of the insurance-related event or vehicle damage is detected by one or more vehicle-mounted sensors or mobile device sensors.

“16. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the insurance-related event is a home event associated with the policyholder and covered by the policy; and damage to one or both of a home or personal belongings is detected via one or more of home-mounted sensors, vehicle-mounted sensors, or mobile device sensors.

“17. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the insurance-related event is a medical event associated with the policyholder and covered by the policy; and the medical event is detected by one or more of home-mounted sensors, vehicle-mounted sensors, mobile device sensors, smart glasses, smart watches, or wearable sensors.

“18. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the information associated with the policyholder comprises receiving the information via one or more of home, wearable, or mobile device sensors.

“19. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the information associated with the policyholder comprises receiving the information via electronic communication with the policyholder’s or a beneficiary’s mobile device.

“20. A computer system for detecting insurance-related events and handling insurance claims, the computer system comprising one or more local or remote processors, transceivers, servers, or sensors, the computer system configured to: with a policyholder’s permission and affirmative consent, build a policyholder profile and online policyholder account for the policyholder based upon policyholder input, wherein the policyholder profile includes policy information; receive digital assets uploaded by the policyholder, and associate or otherwise link the digital assets with the policyholder profile, wherein the digital assets include one or more of social media content, telephone voice recordings, or emails; build, by the one or more processors using machine learning, a chatbot avatar of the policyholder based upon the digital assets; upon the policyholder selecting a beneficiary, contact the beneficiary that is different than the policyholder via electronic communication, and then provide the beneficiary with notice that they have electronic access to the policyholder account via a beneficiary app; providing the beneficiary app to the beneficiary, wherein the beneficiary app operates on a computing device associated with the beneficiary and includes a chatbot interface facilitating conversations with the chatbot avatar of the policyholder by one or both of text or speech; receive information associated with the policyholder, such as via electronic communication with the policyholder’s or a beneficiary’s mobile device; determine the insurance-related event based upon the information associated with the policyholder; send, via the beneficiary app and in response to the determination of the insurance-related event, an electronic notification of the insurance-related event to the beneficiary; initiate, automatically in response to the determination of the insurance-related event, a claim based upon the policy and the insurance-related event; and relaying the status of the claim to the beneficiary via the beneficiary app through the chatbot interface via the chatbot avatar of the policyholder by one or both of text or speech.

“21. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the claim relates to an auto insurance policy, and vehicle telematics or home sensor data is analyzed to estimate vehicle damage and repair or replacement costs.

“22. The computer system of claim 20, wherein the claim relates to a homeowners insurance policy, and vehicle telematics or home sensor data is analyzed to estimate home damage and repair or replacement costs.

“23. The computer system of claim 20 wherein the computer system is configured to receive the information associated with the policyholder via one or more of home, vehicle, wearable, or mobile device sensors.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Banerjee, Shreeti. Insurance claim processing in secure personal and financial information storage and chatbot access by trusted individuals. U.S. Patent Number 11948198, filed November 4, 2020, and published online on April 2, 2024. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11948198)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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