State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Assigned Patent for Using Mobile Device to Provide Data

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 14 -- State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, Bloomington, Illinois, has been assigned a patent (No. 10,410,288, initially filed Jan. 5, 2015) developed by 10 co-inventors for "methods using a mobile device to provide data for insurance premiums to a remote computer." The co-inventors are Benjamin F. Bowne, Mackinaw, Illinois, Jufeng "James" Peng, Normal, Illinois, Nicholas R. Baker, Normal, Illinois, Duane Lee Marzinzik, Springfield, Illinois, Matthew Eric Riley Sr., Heyworth, Illinois, Nick U. Christopulos, Bloomington, Illinois, Brian Mark Fields, Normal, Illinois, J. Lynn Wilson, Normal, Illinois, Bryan T. Wilkerson, Bloomington, Illinois, and David W. Thurber, Sherman, Illinois.

The full-text of the patent can be found at 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=10,410,288.PN.&OS=PN/10,410,288&RS=PN/10,410,288

The abstract states: "A method for providing vehicle operation data to a remote computer or server for calculation of a vehicle insurance premium for a period of time based at least in part on collected vehicle operation data, wherein the method includes steps of: collecting vehicle operation data via a mobile device while the mobile device is associated with an operating vehicle, wherein the vehicle operation data has insurance risk predictive power, and transmitting the collected vehicle operation data from the mobile device to a remote computer. The remote computer or server receives collected vehicle operation data, stores the collected vehicle operation data in a database, a determines a vehicle insurance premium via a rating engine based at least in part on collected vehicle operation data."

Written by Ranjan Behera; edited by Sudarshan Harpal.