“Recommendation of Insurance Products Based on an Inventory Analysis” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20220414783): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 JAN 13 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors Brandmaier, Jennifer (Chicago, IL, US); Gillespie, James (Belfast, US); Hughes, Stephen (Belfast, GB); Koza, Daniel (Hinsdale, IL, US); Loo, William (Arlington Heights, IL, US), filed on August 29, 2022, was made available online on December 29, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Conventional software applications for generating an inventory of items associated with property such as a home, office, business, etc. are little more than non-intelligent databases for storing each item input by a user. In addition, conventional inventory applications are stand-alone systems that are not configured to interact with external systems to better leverage the information included in the inventory.

“Therefore, there is a need for optimized systems and methods for generating an inventory and leveraging the information included within the inventory.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “The following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. This summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure or 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 more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure involve optimized systems and methods for generating, maintaining, and using documentation of an inventory of items associated with an entity such as a home, office, vehicle, and other types of property.

“In another aspect of the disclosure, an optimized inventory analysis server may interface with external systems and may generate an inventory configured for various purposes, including insurance analysis. In particular, the optimized inventory analysis server may identify users associated with an entity such as an insurance company and may generate a profile associated with the users. In addition, the optimized inventory analysis server may store information related to ownership of various inventory items. Using the inventory information associated with each user profile, the optimized inventory analysis server may also recommend items that each user may want to own or may already own but has forgotten to add to the inventory. In another aspect, the optimized inventory analysis server may determine a depreciated price for items within an inventory.

“In another aspect, an optimized inventory analysis server may calculate loss associated with an insurance claim by interfacing with a database storing items within an inventory. The server may also allow users to provide more information to recalculate the loss and generate a finalized settlement.

“In another aspect, an optimized inventory analysis server may manage the storage of information related to what a user owns, insurance coverage for items owned by the user, and the value of items owned and insured by the user. Based on an analysis of this information, the optimized inventory analysis server may determine if each item owned/stored is insured at all (e.g., via an item-by-item insurance policy) and/or adequately insured. In another aspect, the optimized inventory analysis server may determine if there are any additional and/or alternative insurance products from which users may benefit.

“In other aspects, an optimized inventory analysis server may recommend incentives for purchasing items sold by third party entities. The optimized inventory analysis server may also offer incentives for purchasing insurance products for insuring items sold by third party entities.

“Further aspects of the disclosure may be provided in a computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computer, user terminal, or other apparatus to at least perform one or more of the processes described herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: analyzing, by a computing device, a home inventory comprising an identification of each item of a plurality of items covered under an existing insurance policy associated with a user, wherein the home inventory was generated by: receiving one or more images of each item of the plurality of items; and analyzing, using one or more image processing techniques, the one or more images to obtain the identification of each item of the plurality of items; determining, based on demographic information associated with the user, a demographic classification for the user; determining, based on the demographic classification and the analysis of the home inventory, one or more candidate items to recommend to the user; and transmitting, to a user device associated with the user, a recommendation related to the one or more candidate items.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more candidate items to recommend to the user comprises: determining the demographic information associated with the user; determining the demographic classification of the user by accessing a database storing for a plurality of users: demographic information for each of the plurality of users; demographic classifications for each of the plurality of users; and inventory items associated with each of the plurality of users; and determining as the one or more candidate items owned by a threshold percentage of the plurality of users having demographic information similar to the determined demographic information of the user.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the recommendation related to the one or more candidate items is a recommendation for the user to include the one or more candidate items in the home inventory if the user currently owns the one or more candidate items.

“4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining, based on querying a database, whether an incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available; and based on determining that the incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available, transmitting, to the user device and with the recommendation related to the one or more candidate items, information related to the incentive.

“5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining whether the incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available is further based user preferences related to incentives.

“6. The method of claim 4, further comprising: after transmitting the information related to the incentive, receiving, from the user device, a user response regarding the incentive.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more candidate items to recommend to the user comprises: accessing a database storing for a plurality of users: demographic information for each of the plurality of users; demographic classifications for each of the plurality of users; and inventory items associated with each of the plurality of users; and determining the one or more candidate items owned by at least a threshold percentage of the plurality of users having demographic classification similar to the determined demographic classification of the user.

“8. A method comprising: analyzing, by a computing device, a home inventory comprising an identification of each item of a plurality of items associated with a user, wherein the home inventory was generated by: receiving one or more images of each item of the plurality of items; and analyzing, using one or more image processing techniques, the one or more images to obtain the identification of each item of the plurality of items; determining, based on demographic information associated with the user, a demographic classification for the user; determining, based on the demographic classification and the analysis of the home inventory, one or more candidate items to recommend to the user; and transmitting, to a user device associated with the user, a recommendation related to the one or more candidate items.

“9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the one or more candidate items to recommend to the user comprises: determining the demographic information associated with the user; determining the demographic classification of the user by accessing a database storing for a plurality of users: demographic information for each of the plurality of users; demographic classifications for each of the plurality of users; and inventory items associated with each of the plurality of users; and determining as the one or more candidate items owned by a threshold percentage of the plurality of users having demographic information similar to the determined demographic information of the user.

“10. The method of claim 8, wherein the recommendation related to the one or more candidate items is a recommendation for the user to include the one or more candidate items in the home inventory if the user currently owns the one or more candidate items.

“11. The method of claim 8, further comprising: determining, based on querying a database, whether an incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available; and based on determining that the incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available, transmitting, to the user device and with the recommendation related to the one or more candidate items, information related to the incentive.

“12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining whether the incentive associated with at least one of the one or more candidate items is available is further based user preferences related to incentives.

“13. The method of claim 11, further comprising: after transmitting the information related to the incentive, receiving, from the user device, a user response regarding the incentive.

“14. The method of claim 7, wherein the plurality of items are associated with an insurance plan.

“15. The method of claim 7, wherein the plurality of items are associated with an insurance claim.

“16. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the one or more candidate items to recommend to the user comprises: accessing a database storing for a plurality of users: demographic information for each of the plurality of users; demographic classifications for each of the plurality of users; and inventory items associated with each of the plurality of users; and determining as the one or more candidate items owned by at least a threshold percentage of the plurality of users having demographic classification similar to the determined demographic classification of the user.

“17. A method comprising: analyzing, by a computing device, an inventory comprising an identification of each item of a plurality of items associated with a user, wherein the inventory was generated by: receiving an image of each item of the plurality of items; and analyzing the image to obtain the identification of each item of the plurality of items; determining, based on demographic information associated with the user, a demographic classification of the user; determining, based on the demographic classification and the analysis of the inventory, a candidate item to recommend to the user; and transmitting, to a user device, a recommendation related to the candidate item.

“18. The method of claim 17, wherein determining the candidate item to recommend to the user comprises: receiving demographic classification associated with a plurality of users; determining the candidate item is owned by at least a threshold percentage of the plurality of users having demographic classification similar to the determined demographic classification of the user.

“19. The method of claim 17, wherein the recommendation related to the candidate item is a recommendation for the user to include the candidate item in the inventory if the user currently owns the candidate item.

“20. The method of claim 17, further comprising: determining, based on querying a database, whether an incentive associated with the candidate item is available; and upon determining that the incentive associated with the candidate item is available, transmitting information related to the incentive to the user device.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: Brandmaier, Jennifer; Gillespie, James; Hughes, Stephen; Koza, Daniel; Loo, William. Recommendation of Insurance Products Based on an Inventory Analysis. U.S. Patent Application Number 20220414783, filed August 29, 2022 and posted December 29, 2022. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20220414783)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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