Patent Issued for Method and system for collaborative inspection of insured properties (USPTO 11367145): State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

2022 JUL 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Kenney, Stuart D. (Heyworth, IL, US), filed on March 2, 2021, was published online on June 21, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11367145 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: “When an insurer adjusts an insurance claim for structural property damage, it typically starts with a physical inspection of the property. The inspection may include creating a record of the inspection and the insurer’s findings, including photographs, measurements and drawings. The insurer uses such information in assessing policy coverage, estimating repair costs and concluding the claim.

“The inspection documentation may also be used to explain to the policyholder the reasons for insurer’s adjustment of the claim. The information typically is also provided to third-parties involved in the claim, such as public adjusters, contractors, experts, appointed independent appraisers and sometimes the courts.

“For all these purposes, it is important for the inspection to be thoroughly conducted and documented. Nonetheless, there can be multiple inspections, for example because of differences concerning the existence and scope of covered damage, types of construction or materials and/or required repairs and associated costs.

“Each additional inspection inconveniences the policyholder and delays final resolution of the claim. Such delays can be lengthy because of multi-participant scheduling challenges. Moreover, as to the insurance industry generally, additional inspections increase loss adjustment expenses and therefore insurance rates.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Many of the foregoing challenges to expeditious final adjustment may be eliminated or diminished by the present embodiments, which may include an early inspection of all exterior surfaces of the structure, ideally with the policyholder or a representative, in which pertinent data is collected and can be analyzed in multiple modes. The objective is creating, from inception, a record of the entire exterior, which may foreclose the utility of further inspections at any stage of claim resolution. Additional inspections required by conventional techniques would be rendered unnecessary by compilation of a visual and empirical record of all exterior structure surfaces by an automated system that acquires inspection data in a quantity, quality and interpretive usefulness that equals or exceeds traditional inspections.

“As noted above, multiple inspections and the delays associated with them can be minimized by the present embodiments, which may include a system that is independently certified to acquire in a single inspection, and in an automated and uniform process, all information that could be acquired by multiple inspections. For further efficiency, such a system may offer remote, real-time participation by the insured and any third-parties, thereby facilitating early claim settlement and minimizing insured inconvenience.

“These and other goals may be achieved with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) structural loss inspection and adjustment system (UAS) that includes, without limitation, the following functionalities, technologies and operations:”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system for collaborative, real-time inspection of insured properties, the system comprising: a plurality of workstations, each operated by a different user with a respective role in processing an insurance claim; a memory storing a database; and a server system communicatively coupled to each of the plurality of workstations, the memory, and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) configured to collect aerial imagery, wherein the server system is configured to: receive an indication of an insured property to be inspected by respective users at the plurality of workstations using the UAV, wherein one of the plurality of workstations is an operator workstation with control over the UAV, obtain, during a pre-inspection session flight of the UAV, a plurality of aerial images of the insured property to create a three-dimensional (3D) image of the insured property based upon a stereoscopic imaging technique, determine dimensional data associated with the insured property by analyzing the 3D image in conjunction with proximity sensor data, transmit an instruction to the UAV causing the UAV to autonomously perform at least a portion of the inspection session based upon the dimensional data, provide, substantially in real time during the inspection session, aerial imagery of the insured property to each of the plurality of workstations, receive, substantially in real time during the inspection session, information related to the insured property being inspected from at least some of the plurality of workstations, and generate a database record descriptive of the inspection session.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system is further configured to: select an operator for the inspection session in view of at least one of (i) current availability of the operator and (ii) workload of the operator, wherein the operator uses the operator workstation to control the UAV.

“3. The system of claim 2, wherein the server system is further configured to: select the insured property to be inspected in view at least of a geographic location of the insured property.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein the server system is further configured to limit the inspection session to an area enclosed by boundaries of the insured property.

“5. The system of claim 2, wherein the server system is further configured to: transmit a message indicative of a provisional assignment of the operator for the inspection session to a user in a managerial role, receive, from the user in the managerial role, a confirmation that the selected operator is to be assigned to the inspection session.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system is configured to provide, to the operator workstation, a sequence of properties of the insured property to be inspected during the inspection session.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein to receive the information related to the insured property during the inspection session, the server system is configured to: receive, from at least some of the plurality of workstations, requests to zoom in on a portion of the insured property, and forward the request to the operator workstation.

“8. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system is further configured to: receive, during the inspection session, a digital document related to the insured property from one of the plurality of workstations, and distribute the digital document to the plurality of workstations substantially in real time.

“9. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system is configured to include in the database record at least one of (i) photographic imagery collected during the inspection session, (ii) comments related to the insured property received from the plurality of workstations during the inspection session, and (iii) documents related to the insured property received from the plurality of workstations during the inspection session.

“10. The system of claim 1, wherein the server system is further configured to: grant access to the inspection session to users operating respective workstations based upon organizational roles of the users.

“11. A computer-implemented method for conducting a collaborative, real-time inspection of insured properties, the method comprising: prior to an inspection session, receiving, by one or more processors, an indication of an insured property to be inspected by respective users at a plurality of workstations using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) configured to collect aerial imagery, wherein one of the plurality of workstations is an operator workstation with control over the UAV; obtaining, during a pre-inspection session flight of the UAV, a plurality of aerial images of the insured property to create a three-dimensional (3D) image of the insured property based upon a stereoscopic imaging technique; determining, by one or more processors, dimensional data associated with the insured property by analyzing the 3D image in conjunction with proximity sensor data; causing, by one or more processors, the UAV to autonomously perform at least a portion of the inspection session based upon the dimensional data; providing, by one or more processors substantially in real time during the inspection session, aerial imagery of the insured property to each of the plurality of workstations; receiving, by one or more processors substantially in real time during the inspection session, information related to the insured property being inspected from at least some of the plurality of workstations; and generating, by one or more processors, a database record descriptive of the inspection session.

“12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: selecting, by one or more processors, an operator for the inspection session in view of at least one of (i) current availability of the operator and (ii) workload of the operator, wherein the operator uses the operator workstation to control the UAV.

“13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: selecting, by one or more processors, the insured property to be inspected in view at least of a geographic location of the insured property.

“14. The method of claim 13 further comprising limiting the inspection session to an area enclosed by boundaries of the insured property.

“15. The method of claim 12, further comprising: transmitting, by one or more processors, a message indicative of a provisional assignment of the operator for the inspection session to a user in a managerial role, receiving, by one or more processors from the user in the managerial role, a confirmation that the selected operator is to be assigned to the inspection session.

“16. The method of claim 11, further comprising providing, by one or more processors to the operator workstation, a sequence of properties of the insured property to be inspected during the inspection session.

“17. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the information related to the insured property during the inspection session includes: receiving, by one or more processors from at least some of the plurality of workstations, requests to zoom in on a portion of the insured property, and forwarding, by one or more processors, the request to the operator workstation.

“18. The method of claim 11, further comprising: receiving, by one or more processors during the inspection session, a digital document related to the insured property from one of the plurality of workstations, and distributing, by one or more processors, the digital document to the plurality of workstations substantially in real time.

“19. The method of claim 11, further comprising: including, by one or more processors in the database record at least one of (i) photographic imagery collected during the inspection session, (ii) comments related to the insured property received from the plurality of workstations during the inspection session, and (iii) documents related to the insured property received from the plurality of workstations during the inspection session.

“20. The method of claim 11, further comprising: granting, by one or more processors, access to the inspection session to users operating respective workstations based upon organizational roles of the users.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Kenney, Stuart D. Method and system for collaborative inspection of insured properties. U.S. Patent Number 11367145, filed March 2, 2021, and published online on June 21, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11367145.PN.&OS=PN/11367145RS=PN/11367145

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