Patent Issued for Systems and methods for obtaining data annotations (USPTO 11449832): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 OCT 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11449832, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Shapiro, Glenn (Northbrook, IL, US).

This patent was filed on May 14, 2020 and was published online on September 20, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Conventional insurance claims processing is a complex process that starts with a first notification of loss related to an insured item. Upon notification of loss, the claim can be routed to multiple claims adjusters that analyze different aspects of the damage associated with the insured item in order to determine whether compensation for the loss is appropriate.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Conventional claims adjustment can involve paperwork processing, telephone calls, and potentially face-to-face meetings between claimant and adjuster. In addition, a significant amount of time can elapse between a first notice of loss from the claimant and the final settlement of the claim. Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the disclosure can automatically determine an adjuster device to be assigned to process a particular claim. The adjuster device can be provided with a set of data describing damage to an item and a variety of annotations can be applied to the data. In a variety of embodiments, multiple adjuster devices can review the same claim and a final claim outcome can be determined based on the multiple reviews. In many embodiments, machine classifiers may process the set of data to identify particular features within the data. Scoring data can be generated, based on annotations provided by other adjuster devices and/or machine classifiers, reflecting the adjuster device’s skill at identifying features within the data and annotating the data. Claims can be assigned to adjuster devices based on the score assigned to the adjuster device.

“The arrangements described can also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method for providing data processing from a crowdsourced group, comprising: obtaining, by a data processing server system, item data describing a particular item, wherein the item data comprises a set of images of the particular item; anonymizing, by the data processing server system, the item data; automatically determining, by the data processing server system, a threshold value; determining, by the data processing server system, a plurality of adjuster devices having a score greater than the threshold value; generating, by the data processing server system, job request data based on the anonymized item data; transmitting, by the data processing server system, the job request data to the plurality of adjuster devices; obtaining, by the data processing server system, acceptance data generated based on the job request data from at least one of the plurality of adjuster devices; determining, by the data processing server system, an adjuster score for each of the at least one of the plurality of adjuster devices, wherein the acceptance data and adjuster score indicate a first adjuster device in the plurality of adjuster devices; transmitting, by the data processing server system and to the first adjuster device, the anonymized item data; receiving, by the data processing server system from the first adjuster device, annotation data associated with a set of features in the anonymized data to the data processing server system; providing, by the data processing server system, the anonymized item data to a trained machine classifier; generating, by the trained machine classifier, a performance data for the first adjuster device based on accuracy of the annotation data transmitted by the first adjuster device as determined by the trained machine classifier; generating, by the data processing server system, an updated adjuster score associated with the first adjuster device and based on the performance data for the first adjuster device; and transmitting, by the data processing server system, to the first adjuster device, the updated adjuster score.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the data processing server system and from the first adjuster device, the annotation data; and generating, by the data processing server system, scoring data based on the annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the adjuster device.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the data processing server system and from a third-party server system, certification data for a set of adjuster devices; and determining, by the data processing server system, the at least one adjuster device based on the certification data for the set of adjuster devices.

“4. The method of claim 3, wherein the certification data is based on the particular item described in the item data.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the data processing server system and from the first adjuster device, first annotation data; obtaining, by the data processing server system and from a second adjuster device in the plurality of adjuster devices, second annotation data; and generating, by the data processing server system, scoring data based on the first annotation data and the second annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the first adjuster device relative to the second adjuster device.

“6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the data processing server system and from the first adjuster device, annotation data; generating, by the data processing server system, scoring data based on the annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the first adjuster device; generating, by the data processing server system, an aggregate score for the anonymized item data based on annotation data received from a second plurality of adjuster devices distinct from the first adjuster device; and generating feedback data based on the aggregate score and the scoring data.

“7. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing, by the data processing server system, the feedback data to the first adjuster device.

“8. A data processing server system, comprising: at least one processor; and memory storing instructions that, when read by the at least one processor, cause the data processing server system to: obtain item data describing a particular item, wherein the item data comprises a set of images of the particular item and an indication of a class associated with the item data; anonymize the item data; automatically determine a threshold value; determine a plurality of adjuster devices having a score greater than the threshold value and based on the class associated with the anonymized item data; generate job request data based on the anonymized item data; transmit the job request data to the plurality of adjuster devices; obtain acceptance data generated based on the job request data from at least one of the plurality of adjuster devices; determine, by the data processing server system, an adjuster score for each of the at least one of the plurality of adjuster devices, wherein the acceptance data and adjuster score indicate a first adjuster device in the plurality of adjuster devices; transmit, to the first adjuster device, the anonymized item data; receive, from the first adjuster device, annotation data associated with a set of features in the anonymized data to the data processing server system; provide the anonymized item data to a trained machine classifier, the trained machine classifier to generate a performance data for the first adjuster device based on accuracy of the annotation data transmitted by the first adjuster device as determined by the trained machine classifier; generate an updated adjuster score associated with the first adjuster device and based on the performance data for the first adjuster device; and transmitting, by the data processing server system, to the first adjuster device, the updated adjuster score.

“9. The data processing server system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when read by the at least one processor, further cause the data processing server system to: obtain, from the first adjuster device, the annotation data; and generate scoring data based on the annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the first adjuster device.

“10. The data processing server system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when read by the at least one processor, further cause the data processing server system to: obtain, from the first adjuster device, the annotation data; obtain, from a second adjuster device in the plurality of adjuster devices, second annotation data; and generate scoring data based on the annotation data and the second annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the first adjuster device.

“11. The data processing server system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when read by the at least one processor, further cause the data processing server system to: obtain, from a third-party server system, certification data for a set of adjuster devices; and determine the at least one adjuster device further based on the certification data for the set of adjuster devices.

“12. The data processing server system of claim 11, wherein the certification data is based on the class associated with the item data.

“13. The data processing server system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when read by the at least one processor, further cause the data processing server system to: obtain, from the first adjuster device, the annotation data; generate scoring data based on the annotation data, wherein the scoring data indicates a performance of the first adjuster device; generate an aggregate score for the anonymized item data based on annotation data received from a second plurality of adjuster devices distinct from the first adjuster device; and generate feedback data based on the aggregate score and the scoring data.

“14. The data processing server system of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when read by the at least one processor, further cause the data processing server system to provide the feedback data to the first adjuster device.”

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

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Shapiro, Glenn. Systems and methods for obtaining data annotations. U.S. Patent Number 11449832, filed May 14, 2020, and published online on September 20, 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=11449832.PN.&OS=PN/11449832RS=PN/11449832

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