Patent Issued for Vehicle rating system (USPTO 11468533): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 NOV 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States) has been issued patent number 11468533, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Irey, Grady (Des Plaines, IL, US).

This patent was filed on November 26, 2019 and was published online on October 11, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Insurance companies may employ telematics devices installed in vehicles to monitor and analyze driving performance of drivers insured by the insurance companies. Based on the data collected by such devices, insurance companies may evaluate the driving behaviors of drivers to assess their risk and determine an appropriate insurance cost and premium for each driver. In this way, insurance companies may additionally provide benefits to drivers that engage in safe driving behaviors.

“In some cases, drivers may be interested in purchasing or leasing new or preowned vehicles. Drivers may wish to obtain information regarding new or preowned vehicles prior to purchase, such as information regarding vehicle quality, performance, engine power, interior features, exterior features, and the like. Drivers may rely on information and vehicle ratings from consumer reports, surveys, and market research in order to determine which vehicle to acquire. For example, a driver may consult automotive ratings and look at which vehicles were rated the best for various features.

“However, current resources for vehicle ratings may be lacking and might not provide a complete picture of vehicle safety to drivers. In some cases, drivers may be particularly interested in vehicle safety as it pertains differently to each driver. For example, one driver may be a faster driver and may take more risks than other drivers. On the other hand, another driver may naturally drive slower than most drivers and take fewer risks when driving. In such cases, certain vehicles may be better suited or safer for some drivers (e.g., fast drivers) rather than other drivers (e.g., slow drivers). Nevertheless, conventional vehicle ratings might not account for different drivers exhibiting a variety of driving behaviors. For example, a driver may purchase or lease a vehicle that is not appropriately suited for him or her, which may result in unsafe driving. Unsafe driving may lead to accidents, which may be harmful and costly.

“In light of the above, there may be a demand for new systems, methods, and devices that leverage telematics devices and data obtained therefrom to provide drivers with relevant information for vehicle safety in order to facilitate vehicle purchasing and leasing decisions.”

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.

“Aspects of the disclosure describe computerized methods, systems, devices, and apparatuses for a vehicle rating system that provide drivers with customized recommendations of one or more rated vehicles based on driving behaviors collected by telematics devices. For example, the vehicle rating system may assign safety ratings to drivers and identify one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that match a driver’s driving behaviors, as well as the driver’s own safety ratings.

“The disclosure describes a system comprising a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein, a first computing device associated with a driver of the vehicle, a database storing data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles, and a driving behaviors analysis server, comprising hardware including a processor and memory. The driving behaviors analysis server may be configured to receive, from the one or more sensors and via the telematics device, driving data of the driver of the vehicle from the telematics device, identify one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, assign a driver safety rating to the driver based on the identification of the one or more driving behaviors, determine one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating assigned to the driver based on parsing the data regarding the plurality of rated vehicles in the database, generate a customized recommendation for the driver, wherein the customized recommendation presents information regarding the determined one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating, and transmit the customized recommendation to the first computing device associated with the driver.

“The disclosure also describes an apparatus comprising at least one processor, a network interface configured to communicate, via a network, with a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein and a first computing device associated with a driver, and a memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to receive driving data of the driver of the vehicle from the one or more sensors and via the telematics device, identify one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, assign a driver safety rating to the driver based on the identification of the one or more driving behaviors, determine one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating assigned to the driver based on parsing data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles in the database, generate a customized recommendation for the driver, wherein the customized recommendation presents information regarding the determined one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating, and transmit the customized recommendation to the first computing device associated with the driver.

“In addition, aspects of this disclosure provide a method that includes receiving driving data of a driver of a vehicle from a telematics device associated with the vehicle having one or more sensors arranged therein, identifying, by one or more computing devices, one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data, assigning, by the one or more computing devices, a driver safety rating to the driver based on the identification of the one or more driving behaviors, determining, by the one or more computing devices, one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating assigned to the driver based on parsing data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles, generating, by the one or more computing devices, a customized recommendation for the driver, wherein the customized recommendation presents information regarding the determined one or more rated vehicles with safety ratings that correspond to the driver safety rating, and transmitting, by the one or more computing devices, the customized recommendation to the driver.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system comprising: a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors; a first computing device associated with a driver of the vehicle; a database configured to store data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles; and a driving behaviors analysis server including a processor and memory, the driving behaviors analysis server configured to: receive, via the telematics device, driving data of the driver; identify one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data; assign a driver safety rating to the driver based on the one or more driving behaviors; parse the data regarding the plurality of rated vehicles in the database to determine whether the driver safety rating corresponds to any of the plurality of rated vehicles; and when the driver safety rating is determined to correspond to one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, generate a customized recommendation with the one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, a safety rating of each of the one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, and the driver safety rating and transmit the customized recommendation to the first computing device associated with the driver.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein, the driving data includes real-time data collected by the one or more sensors while the driver is driving, and the one or more driving behaviors of the driver are based on at least one of driving speeds, acceleration, braking, steering, miles driven, road conditions, or amount of time driven.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to: calculate a score for each of the one or more driving behaviors of the driver; assign an overall driving score for the driver based on the score for each of the one or more driving behaviors; determine the overall driving score to be within a predetermined score range of a plurality of predetermined score ranges; and assign, to the driver, the driver safety rating corresponding to the predetermined score range of the plurality of predetermined score ranges.

“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to: receive data regarding a plurality of vehicles; classify each vehicle in the plurality of vehicles by vehicle type; and assign a safety rating to each vehicle type in the plurality of vehicles based on one or more vehicle features, frequency of accidents, severity of accidents, and likelihood of accidents for a plurality of drivers for each vehicle type, resulting in the plurality of rated vehicles.

“5. The system of claim 1, wherein the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to: associate a first subset of a plurality of drivers with the driver based on at least a corresponding one of the one or more driving behaviors; and identify a subset of the plurality of rated vehicles associated with the first subset of the plurality of drivers.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein, the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to receive, from the first computing device, a request for information comprising one or more preferences of the driver regarding a new vehicle for lease or purchase by the driver, the customized recommendation is based on the one or more preferences of the driver, and the customized recommendation indicates features for each of the plurality of rated vehicles.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein, the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to identify safe driving behaviors indicative of safe driving, the safe driving behaviors include at least one of slow turns, driving at or below posted speed limits, safe braking, consistent acceleration, steady steering, safe lane changing, or maintaining safe distances from other vehicles while driving, and the driving behaviors analysis server is further configured to assign a driver safety rating of a first level based on the safe driving behaviors.

“8. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a network interface configured to communicate, via a network, with a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors and a first computing device associated with a driver; and a memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to: receive, via the telematics device, driving data of the driver; identify one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data; assign a driver safety rating to the driver based on the one or more driving behaviors; parse data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles to determine whether the driver safety rating corresponds to any of the plurality of rated vehicles; and when the driver safety rating is determined to correspond to one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, generate a customized recommendation with the one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, a safety rating of each of the one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, and the driver safety rating, and transmit the customized recommendation to the first computing device associated with the driver.

“9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the driving data comprises real-time data that is collected by the one or more sensors arranged in the vehicle while the driver is driving, and wherein the driving behaviors for the driver are based on at least one of driving speeds, acceleration, braking, steering, miles driven, road conditions, and amount of time driven.

“10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the apparatus to: calculate a score for each of the one or more driving behaviors of the driver; assign an overall driving score for the driver based on the score for each of the one or more driving behaviors; determine the overall driving score to be within a predetermined score range of a plurality of predetermined score ranges; and assign, to the driver, the driver safety rating corresponding to the predetermined score range of the plurality of predetermined score ranges.

“11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the apparatus to: receive data regarding a plurality of vehicles; classify each vehicle in the plurality of vehicles by vehicle type; and assign a safety rating to each vehicle type in the plurality of vehicles based on one or more vehicle features, frequency of accidents, severity of accidents, and likelihood of accidents for a plurality of drivers for each vehicle type, resulting in the plurality of rated vehicles.

“12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the apparatus to: associate a first subset of a plurality of drivers with the driver based on at least a corresponding one of the one or more driving behaviors; and identify a subset of the plurality of rated vehicles associated with the first subset of the plurality of drivers.

“13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the apparatus to: receive, from the first computing device, a request for information comprising one or more preferences of the driver regarding a new vehicle for lease or purchase by the driver; and generating the customized recommendation for the driver based on the one or more preferences of the driver, wherein the customized recommendation indicates features for each of the plurality of rated vehicles.

“14. A method comprising: receiving, from a telematics device associated with a vehicle having one or more sensors driving data of a driver of the vehicle; identifying, by one or more computing devices, one or more driving behaviors of the driver based on the driving data; assigning, by the one or more computing devices, a driver safety rating to the driver based on the one or more driving behaviors; parsing data regarding a plurality of rated vehicles to determine whether the driver safety rating corresponds to any of the plurality of rated vehicles; and when the driver safety rating is determined to correspond to one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, generating, by the one or more computing devices, a customized recommendation with one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, a safety rating of each of the one or more of the plurality of rated vehicles, and the driver safety rating, and transmitting, by the one or more computing devices, the customized recommendation to the driver.

“15. The method of claim 14, wherein the driving data comprises real-time data that is collected by the one or more sensors arranged in the vehicle while the driver is driving, and wherein the driving behaviors for the driver are based on at least one of driving speeds, acceleration, braking, steering, miles driven, road conditions, and amount of time driven.

“16. The method of claim 14, wherein assigning the driver safety rating further comprises: calculating a score for each of the one or more driving behaviors of the driver; assigning an overall driving score for the driver based on the score for each of the one or more driving behaviors; determining the overall driving score to be within a predetermined score range of a plurality of predetermined score ranges; and assigning, to the driver, the driver safety rating corresponding to the predetermined score range of the plurality of predetermined score ranges.

“17. The method of claim 14, further comprising: receiving data regarding a plurality of vehicles; classifying each vehicle in the plurality of vehicles by vehicle type; and assigning a safety rating to each vehicle type in the plurality of vehicles based on one or more vehicle features, frequency of accidents, severity of accidents, and likelihood of accidents for a plurality of drivers for each vehicle type, resulting in the plurality of rated vehicles.”

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

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Irey, Grady. Vehicle rating system. U.S. Patent Number 11468533, filed November 26, 2019, and published online on October 11, 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=11468533.PN.&OS=PN/11468533RS=PN/11468533

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