Patent Issued for Systems and methods for generating an assessment of safety parameters using sensors and sensor data (USPTO 11748817): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 SEP 22 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Szott, Debra (Palatine, IL, US), filed on March 26, 2019, was published online on September 5, 2023.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 11748817, is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “When an individual is looking to move to an area he or she is not familiar with, he or she may not be aware of problems that may be typically associated with the area, such as the crime rate, an increased risk of flood or fire, or the like. An individual moving to a new area may be interested in information that is current (e.g., in real time), reliable, and from a trusted source. Without accurate information associated with a particular area, insurance providers might not be able to accurately assess neighborhood risk and the impact of such risk, and real estate prices may not accurately reflect the effects of neighborhood safety. There is also a desire for this information to be accessible to users on a user interface having intuitive functionalities. The present disclosure may address one or more of the shortcomings described above.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to systems, methods, apparatuses and computer-readable media for generating parameters for neighborhood safety using sensors and sensor data.

“One example method may include: receiving, by a computing device having one or more processors and from a user device, a request for generating a neighborhood safety assessment for a desired geographic area. The request may be based on an assessment of a first neighborhood safety parameter of a plurality of neighborhood safety parameters. The computing device may determine or identify one or more sensors associated with the desired geographic area; and receive, from the one or more sensors, a present value for a characteristic of the first neighborhood safety parameter of the one or more neighborhood safety parameters. The present value may be received by the computing device or measured by the sensors in real time. The computing device may generate, based on the received present value, an assessment of the first neighborhood safety parameter of the one or more neighborhood safety parameters for the desired geographic area. Assessments of other neighborhood safety parameters of the one or more neighborhood safety parameters may also be generated.

“The method may further comprise: receiving, by the computing device and via an electronic storage medium, a past value for the characteristic of the first neighborhood safety parameter; and comparing the received past value to the received present value of the characteristic of the first neighborhood safety parameter. The comparison may be used to generate a catastrophe model for the desired geographic area. The assessment of the first neighborhood safety parameter for the desired geographic area may be further based on the comparison of the received past value to the received present value and/or on the catastrophe model.

“Neighborhood safety parameters may include, for example, environmental parameters and social parameters. A characteristic of an environmental parameter may include, for example, a pollutant level, a pollen level, a precipitation level, a temperature; an indication of humidity, a wind speed or velocity, an indication of a weather event or upcoming weather event; a seismograph reading, a characteristic of a terrain, or an indication of a microbe or disease presence.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: receiving, by a computing device having one or more processors and from a user device, a request for generating a neighborhood safety assessment, wherein the request is based on at least an environmental parameter and a social parameter; determining, by the computing device and based on global positioning system (GPS) data of the user device, a desired geographic area for the neighborhood safety assessment, the desired geographic area comprising a vicinity defined within a radius span of the user device based on the GPS data; determining, by the computing device, the radius span of the vicinity as being associated with and defining a neighborhood, the neighborhood identified based on the GPS data of the user device; determining, by the computing device, one or more environmental sensors associated with the desired geographic area; causing, by the computing device in real time, one or more environmental sensors to generate a present value for the environmental parameter; receiving, by the computing device and from a second device associated with the desired geographic area, an insurance report based on the neighborhood as defined by the radius span and identified based on the GPS data of the user device; processing, via one or more natural language processors of the computing device, one or more terms of the insurance report to identify a value of the social parameter; generating, by the computing device executing logic via a safety parameter assessment engine comprising a machine learning algorithm trained to generate the neighborhood safety assessment based on the present value for the environmental parameter and based on the value of the social parameter, the neighborhood safety assessment for the desired geographic area; and training the machine learning algorithm to generate the neighborhood safety assessment based on at least past environmental data, wherein training comprises: acquiring a training data set, including at least past environmental data from a database associated with the one or more environmental sensors, for the machine learning algorithm to be trained; generating with the training data, feature vectors, wherein each feature vector includes (1) the past environmental data received within a predetermined period of time, and (2) the temporal and geographical information for each of the received past environmental data; and associating each of the feature vectors with current environmental data; generate one or more feature weights corresponding to an effect of the past environmental data on the current environmental data at a given location and a given time; training the machine learning algorithm using the associated feature vectors and the one or more feature weights; store results of the machine learning algorithm, including the one or more feature weights; wherein the neighborhood safety assessment comprises: a first score for neighborhood safety based on the social parameter, a second score for neighborhood safety based on the environmental parameter, a third score for neighborhood safety based on a holistic assessment of the social parameter and the environmental parameter, and a visual spatial representation of the social parameter and the environmental parameter, the visual spatial representation comprising a display on a user interface of (i) a map of the desired geographic area, (ii) an indicator of at least one of the social parameter and the environmental parameter overlaid on the map, wherein the indicator is associated with a selection of the at least one of the social parameter and the environmental parameter, and (iii) the first score, the second score, and the third score of the neighborhood safety assessment.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the computing device and via an electronic storage medium, a past value for the environmental parameter; and comparing the received past value to the present value of the environmental parameter, wherein the generating the neighborhood safety assessment for the desired geographic area is further based on the comparison of the received past value to the present value.

“3. The method of claim 2, further comprising: generating, based on the comparison of the past value to the present value of the environmental parameter, a catastrophe model for the desired geographic area, wherein the generating the neighborhood safety assessment is further based on the catastrophe model.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is further based on one or both of a second environmental parameter or a second social parameter; wherein the neighborhood safety assessment further comprises: a fourth score for neighborhood safety based on the one or both of the second environmental parameter or the second social parameter, and a visual spatial representation of the one or both of the second social parameter and the second environmental parameter; and wherein the third score for neighborhood safety is further based on a holistic assessment of the social parameter, the environmental parameter, and the one or both of the second environmental parameter or the second social parameter.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving, by the computing device and from a third device associated with the desired geographic area, a criminal activity report associated with the desired geographic area and indicating a second value of the social parameter; and wherein the generating the neighborhood safety assessment for the desired geographic area is further based on the second value of the social parameter.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a value of a property in the desired geographic area; and determining a quantitative effect of the generated neighborhood safety assessment, based on the present value for the environmental parameter and the value of the social parameter, on the value of the property in the desired geographic area.

“7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: updating, based on the generated neighborhood safety assessment based on the present value for the environmental parameter and the value of the social parameter, an insurance policy associated with the insurance report.

“8. The method of claim 1, wherein the environmental parameter comprises at least one of: a pollutant level; a pollen level; a precipitation level; a temperature; an indication of humidity; a wind speed or velocity; an indication of a weather event; a seismograph reading; a characteristic of a terrain; and an indication of a microbe or disease presence.

“9. The method of claim 1, wherein the social parameter comprises at least one of: a frequency of, a severity of, or a count of a crime or misdemeanor; a frequency, severity, or a count of a civil unrest; a frequency, severity, or a count of a cybercrime; and a count of residents or workers in the desired geographical area with a criminal record.

“10. The system of method of claim 1, wherein the machine learning algorithm comprises a neural network model trained to generate the neighborhood safety assessment.”

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

For more information, see this patent: Szott, Debra. Systems and methods for generating an assessment of safety parameters using sensors and sensor data. U.S. Patent Number 11748817, filed March 26, 2019, and published online on September 5, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11748817)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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