Patent Issued for Server for real-time accident documentation and claim submission (USPTO 11030698)

2021 JUN 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Chizmar, Jennifer (Bloomington, IL, US), Gish, Kristina Renee (Bloomington, IL, US), Tofte, Nathan Lee (Downs, IL, US), filed on July 31, 2017, was published online on June 8, 2021, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11030698 is assigned to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (Bloomington, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Insurance claim processing can include redundancy and delay while various parties (policyholder, insurer, repair facility, etc.) collect claim information. When the policyholder submits their claim, inevitably additional information is required by the insurance provider to process the claim and the policyholder must typically wait on approval from either, or both, of the insurer or the repair facility before the claim can be processed and the damage repaired. For example, while the vast majority of automobile accident claims involve only minor damage, physical inspection(s) and the presence of an insurer agent (e.g., claim estimator) are generally required to assess the damage in detail.

“Typical claim processing requires the policyholder initiate the insurance claim and make an initial trip to a repair facility for a preliminary damage assessment. Additional trip(s) to the repair facility will likely be required to complete vehicle repairs. Often, the policyholder must wait for their claim to be processed while a claim estimator inspects the damage to the vehicle and approves the repair.

“One conventional approach to expediting insurance claim submission is to provide a policyholder access to initiate/submit their insurance claim via telephone. While telephone submission does not require the policyholder physically submit their claim, the policyholder is still required to submit information and/or coordinate information exchange with the insurer and the repair facility. Often, similar information is submitted in alternate forms to satisfy insurer requirements. Because the policyholder is required to be on the telephone with the insurer to document the claim, the policyholder has reduced flexibility with respect to the type and order of providing the claim information. Likewise, telephone submission does not resolve the delay problems associated with the repair facility assessment and claim estimator inspection.

“Some insurers provide for online/electronic initiation and submission of insurance claims. Online claim submission does not resolve the burden on the policyholder of having to submit redundant information or coordinating information exchange between the insurer and the repair facility. Also, with online claim submissions there is an increase likelihood of fraudulent claims. Because there is often some delay between the claim event (e.g., car accident) and the time the policyholder files the claim, the insurer is unable to confirm that damage to the policyholder’s property is a result of the accident, as claimed, or whether the damage occurred later and is unrelated to the accident. Similarly, online claim submissions do not resolve the delay associated with the repair facility assessment and claim estimator inspection.

“Conventional methods for processing an insurance claim are not efficient, convenient, and effective in collecting all information necessary to accurately and quickly processing an insurance claim. Therefore, a need in the art exists for systems and methods that overcome one or more of the above-described limitations.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The present invention is directed to a method for processing an insurance claim. An aspect of the present invention provides a computer-implemented method for processing an insurance claim by initiating the insurance claim; receiving user data associated with the insurance claim, the user data including an image; generating a model of a scene associated with the insurance claim using the user data, the scene including a model of an object; analyzing the user data to identify a damaged portion of the object; analyzing the damaged portion to determine a claim element; and analyzing at least one of the user data, the model of the scene, and the claim element to determine whether the insurance claim satisfies a processing criteria.

“Another aspect of the present invention provides a computer program product for processing an insurance claim. The computer program product may comprise a computer-readable storage device having computer-readable program instructions stored therein. The computer-readable program instructions may include instructions for processing an insurance claim by initiating an insurance claim application; receiving user data (including an image) associated with the insurance claim; generating a model of a scene of the insurance claim using the user data, the scene including a model of the user’s vehicle; analyzing the user data to indicate a portion of the model corresponding to damage on the user’s vehicle; analyzing the portion of the model to determine a claim element; analyzing at least one of the user data, the model, and the claim element to determine whether the insurance claim application satisfies a processing criteria.

“Another aspect of the present invention provides a mobile computing device. The mobile computing device can include a processor, a computer-readable media, a memory storage device, and an insurance claim processing application. The insurance claim processing application can be stored on the memory storage device for execution via the computer-readable media. The insurance claim processing application can be configured to: receive user data associated with an insurance claim, the user data including an image of an object; transmit the user data to a remote server; receive a model of a scene of the insurance claim from the remote server, the scene including a model of the object; display the model; receive a user input indicating a portion of the model corresponding to a damaged portion of the object; provide an indication corresponding to the damaged portion of the object; receive additional user data associated with the damaged portion of the object; and transmit the indication and the additional user data to the remote server.

“Another aspect of the present invention provides an insurance claim processing server. The insurance claim processing server can include a processor, a computer-readable media, a memory storage device for storing and providing access to data that is related to an insurance claim, and an insurance claim processing application. The insurance claim processing application can be stored on the memory storage device for execution by the computer-readable media. The insurance claim processing application can be configured to: initiate the insurance claim; receive user data associated with the insurance claim, the user data including an image of an object; analyze the user data to generate a model of a scene associated with the insurance claim, the scene including a model of an object; analyze the model of the scene to identify a damaged portion of the object; transmit the model of the scene to a user device; analyze the damaged portion to determine a claim element; analyze at least one of the user data, the model of the scene, and the claim element to determine whether the insurance claim satisfies a processing criteria; and process the insurance claim when the processing criteria is satisfied.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. An insurance claim processing server comprising: a non-transitory computer readable media having stored thereon an insurance claim processing application; and a processor, wherein said processor upon execution of the insurance claim processing application, is configured to: initiate an insurance claim based on a vehicle and a claim location; receive, over a network, video images associated with the insurance claim from a user’s mobile device, the video images comprising the vehicle that is the subject of the insurance claim captured by the user’s mobile device; analyze and combine the video images comprising the vehicle with stored data regarding the claim location and generate a model of a physical scene associated with the insurance claim based on the received video images comprising the vehicle, the model of the physical scene including a model of the vehicle, the model of the physical scene being a three-dimensional rendering of the claim location and the model of the vehicle being a three-dimensional rendering of the vehicle; analyze, using a feature extraction method comprising at least an edge detection algorithm or a corner detection algorithm, the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle and automatically identify a damaged portion of the vehicle; determine, using at least the edge detection algorithm or the corner detection algorithm, a portion of the vehicle where there is insufficient data from the received video images to identify a damage; automatically add (1) a damage tag to the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle thereto, the damage tag indicating the automatically identified damaged portion of the vehicle and (2) an insufficient-data tag to the model of the vehicle, the insufficient-data tag indicating the portion of the vehicle where there is insufficient data from the received video images to identify the damage; transmit, over the network to the user’s mobile device, the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle, including the automatically added damage tag and the insufficient-data tag, and a notification instructing the user to provide replacement video images corresponding to at least the portion of the vehicle where the insufficient-data tag was automatically added; receive, over the network from the user’s mobile device, damage-related data from the user’s mobile device regarding at least the portion of the vehicle where there was insufficient data from the received video images to identify the damage as indicated by the insufficient-data tag; automatically update the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle based on the damage-related data received from the user’s mobile device regarding at least the portion of the vehicle where there was insufficient data from the received video images to identify the damage as indicated by the insufficient-data tag; analyze features extracted using the feature extraction method from the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle and estimate a force of impact on an occupant of the vehicle; identify a hidden damage to the vehicle and a potential injury to the occupant based on the estimated force of impact estimated from the model of the vehicle; and validate a medical claim of the occupant associated with the insurance claim based on the potential injury to the occupant identified.

“2. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: analyze the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle and determine whether processing criteria is satisfied; and request user data when the processing criteria is not satisfied.

“3. The insurance claim processing server of claim 2, wherein the user data further includes at least one of text data, voice data, and video image data.

“4. The insurance claim processing server of claim 2, wherein the user data includes ancillary data to the insurance claim, the ancillary data including at least one of accident location information, accident time information, accident weather information, and emergency services information.

“5. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: identify a claim element by analyzing the damaged portion of the vehicle and the hidden damage to the vehicle; determine a cost of repair based on the claim element; and provide an initial claim assessment when the cost of repair is less than a threshold repair cost.

“6. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: retrieve vehicle information associated with the vehicle from a database; and generate the model of the vehicle by analyzing the vehicle information.

“7. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: retrieve data associated with an other vehicle from a database; generate a model of the other vehicle using the data associated with the other vehicle; and analyze the model of the other vehicle and identify a damaged portion of the other vehicle.

“8. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: receive, over the network from the user’s mobile device, a user indication of a damaged portion of the vehicle that is the subject of the insurance claim; and receive an insurance provider indication of a damaged portion of the vehicle that is the subject of the insurance claim.

“9. The insurance claim processing server of claim 1, wherein said processor, upon execution of the insurance claim processing application is further configured to: analyze the model of the physical scene including the model of the vehicle and determine whether sufficient data is received to satisfy the processing criteria; and submit the insurance claim to an insurance service provider when the insurance claim satisfies the processing criteria.”

There are additional claims. Please visit full patent to read further.

URL and more information on this patent, see: Chizmar, Jennifer. Server for real-time accident documentation and claim submission. U.S. Patent Number 11030698, filed July 31, 2017, and published online on June 8, 2021. 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=11030698.PN.&OS=PN/11030698RS=PN/11030698

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