Patent Issued for Systems and methods for developing an automated life planner (USPTO 11430068): United Services Automobile Association

2022 SEP 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Bloom, William H. (Boerne, TX, US), Borden, Chase Nicholas (Helotes, TX, US), Guerrero, Elizabeth (San Antonio, TX, US), Jeffords, Natalya Lohinova (San Antonio, TX, US), Obhrai, Nitin (San Antonio, TX, US), Schnedler, Randal Lane (San Antonio, TX, US), filed on April 21, 2021, was published online on August 30, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11430068 is United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Typically, financial planning involves a human financial planner. But a human planner is limited in his or her ability to consider and display the impacts of possible current and future events in the personal life of a user for developing the user’s financial plan.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Various embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to life planning, including financial planning. More specifically, various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to methods and systems for developing a timeline based on data collected from a wide variety of data sources and providing recommendations relating to events on the timeline.

“Typically, financial planning is performed by a human financial planner who reviews a consumer’s finances, holdings, liquid and solid assets, and liabilities and then creates a plan for that consumer. In this approach, however, events related to a consumer’s personal life such as having a baby, losing a job, moving to a new city, and losing an income source after the death of a spouse are generally not considered or visually displayed for the consumer on a timeline. Since a consumer’s life events impact the consumer’s financial plan and recommended actions, there is a need to design a method of financial planning that considers such events and displays the events on a timeline.

“Methods and systems disclosed herein allow users (i.e., consumers) and/or insurance companies to develop a custom financial outlook or plan using visualization techniques of displaying a timeline on a GUI. The timeline can show events, particularly those events that impact a user’s finances, and may include indications of funds needed for the event and the user’s progress toward obtaining those funds. For example, a planned or target retirement date may be positioned on the timeline. In some embodiments, the timeline may further show the user’s predicted financial well-being over time based on predicted income and expenses.

“Events can be determined in many different ways and from many different sources. For example, personal life events can be provided by a user interacting with the system (e.g., the user enters text, submits an image, or sends a message (e.g., text, email)). Personal life events can include events such as having a baby, getting married, moving from one residence to another, sending a child to college. The user may also submit an actual or estimated date of a personal life event. Such events are factored into the timeline and displayed on a timeline, providing a visual of the user’s life events. In some embodiments, the user’s financial well-being (e.g., net worth, cash flow, credit score) can also be displayed.

“In another example, a user can submit, post on social media, or otherwise provide an image relating to a current or a possible future event in the user’s life. The disclosed system can scan the image to extract life event information and determine the event for the user, and then provide customized advice relating to that event. In a specific example, a photograph and/or other collaborating information (e.g., purchase of diapers) may indicate that the user has had a baby. Thus, the system can recommend updating the user’s health insurance policy to add a dependent. The system can further recommend a college savings goal for the baby.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method for life planning performed by a computing system, the method comprising: training a machine learning model, comprising at least one of A) an artificial neural network, or B) a support vector machine, or C) a Naive Bayes classifier, by applying an initial set of training data comprising an initial set of recommendations and predictions of cash flow impacts on users’ future life events to the machine learning model; receiving, by the computing system, a first image of a user during a user profile registration process; identifying, using facial recognition software, a first set of characteristics in the first image, wherein the first set of characteristics includes: edges of features and objects included in the first image and relative positions of facial features of the user in the first image; receiving input from the user classifying a first life event associated with the user, wherein the first life event relates to a financial goal of the user that is not completed; receiving a second image from an information source, the second image relating to a second life event of the user, wherein each of the first and second life event have a cash requirement; identifying, using the facial recognition software and an event recognition software, a second set of characteristics for the second image and identifying information associated with the second life event; comparing the first set of characteristics and the second set of characteristics to identify a match; in response to identifying, based on the first set of characteristics and the second set of characteristics, the match, creating a financial plan for the user, the financial plan having a financial timeline, by: generating, using the machine learning model, the financial timeline, wherein the financial timeline indicates projected financial states of the user over time with respect to each life event, and wherein the projected financial states are based on predictions of cash flow, determining, by an event module of the computing system and based on the first and second set of characteristics, whether the first and second life events A) have a single date of occurrence or B) have a start date of occurrence and an end date of occurrence, generating a first and a second visual indicium respectively corresponding to the first life event and the second life event located on the financial timeline that each specifies A) the single date of occurrence or B) the start date of occurrence and the end date of occurrence, generating, using a recommendation module of the computing system, a relocation recommendation of the first life event with respect to the financial timeline, and automatically implementing the relocation on the financial timeline by moving the first visual indicium corresponding to the first life event to a recommended different date on the financial timeline to correspond with a financial impact of the second life event on the projected financial states of the user, wherein the automatic movement of the first life event comprises: moving the first visual indicium to the recommended different date which is later than a current time when the first life event corresponds to a negative financial impact, and moving the first visual indicium to the recommended different which is date nearer to the current time when the first life event corresponds to a positive financial impact, wherein an amount of movement of the first life event on the financial timeline corresponds to a nearest projected financial state with available cash flow; augmenting the initial set of training data with generated recommendations and predictions to create an updated set of training data and updating the machine learning model with the updated set of training data; and simultaneously displaying, on a graphical user interface, A) the financial timeline without the recommended different date of the first life event and B) the financial timeline with the recommended different date of the first life event.

“2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the information source is selected from the following: a social media network, a public library, or a website.

“3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second set of characteristics includes: edges of features, objects included in the second image, and/or relative positions of facial features of the user in the second image.

“4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprising: upon detecting the match, recommending changes to one or more insurance policies of the user based on the second life event.

“5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises calculating a percentage of completion of the financial goal of the user with respect to information included for the first life event; and wherein the displaying comprises including, on the financial timeline, an indicator reflecting the percentage of completion of the financial goal of the user.

“6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising parsing data from the financial timeline to generate data in a sharable format.

“7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, the method further comprising: receiving, by the computing system, a second input identifying a third life event; displaying, on the graphical user interface, a third visual indicium corresponding to the third life event; generating, using the recommendation module of the computing system, a second relocation recommendation of the first life event with respect to the financial timeline; and automatically implementing the second relocation by moving the first visual indicium to a second recommended different date on the financial timeline to correspond with a second financial impact of the third life event on the projected financial states of the user.

“8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein the second input is received by the computing system via A) entered text, or B) a text message, or C) an email.”

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

For additional information on this patent, see: Bloom, William H. Systems and methods for developing an automated life planner. U.S. Patent Number 11430068, filed April 21, 2021, and published online on August 30, 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=11430068.PN.&OS=PN/11430068RS=PN/11430068

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