VIRTUAL HOME INSPECTION

• US 20150025915A1
• Filed: 07/14/2014
• Published: 01/22/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Esurance Insurance Services Incorporated (Allstate Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Esurance Insurance Services Incorporated (Allstate Corporation)
• Inventors: LEKAS, Stephen Nicholas
• Granted Patent: US 10,360,634 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

A method, system and computer-readable medium are provided for facilitating a virtual inspection of an insurable area, the method including the steps of receiving an indication of a request from a user at a user mobile device to perform a virtual inspection of an insurable area, determining one or more information items needed with respect to the insurable area, providing a set of instructions to the user at the mobile device for capturing one or more image items based on the determined one or more information items, receiving a set of image items from the mobile device in response to the instructions and providing an insurance decision for the insurable area based on the received set of image items.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating a virtual inspection of an insurable area, the method including the steps of:

receiving an indication of a request from a user at a user mobile device to perform a virtual inspection of an insurable area;

determining one or more information items needed with respect to the insurable area;

providing a set of instructions to the user at the mobile device for capturing one or more image items based on the determined one or more information items;

receiving a set of image items from the mobile device in response to the instructions; and

providing an insurance decision for the insurable area based on the received set of image items.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more information items comprise information for making the insurance decision.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

analyzing the set of image items; and

extracting at least one of the one or more information from the set of image items.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the information includes one or more size or condition information regarding the insurable area.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the information includes information regarding belongings or personal property in the insurable area.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein generating the insurance decision comprises generating the insurance decision at least in part based on the at least one of the one or more information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions are provided to the user at the mobile device using a live agent.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

establishing a connection to the live agent in response to receiving the indication of the request.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of instructions comprise a list of areas of the insurable area for capturing images.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the set of instructions comprises:

identifying a plurality of areas of the insurable area from which image data is needed, wherein the set of instructions instruct the user to capture image data from each of the plurality of areas.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a location associated with the mobile device; and

validating that the inspection is associated with the insurable area by comparing the location with a location associated with the insurable area.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of image data include one or more of videos or still images.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of image data includes a plurality of image items.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

validating that each image item of the plurality of image items is associated with the insurable area by;

determining a location associated with the image item; and

comparing the location with a location associated with the insurable area.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the indication of a request comprises detecting that the user has accessed an application at the user mobile device.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the insurable area includes an improvement to real property.

3. The method of claim I, wherein determining the one or more information items is performed by:

accessing a set of existing information provided regarding the insurable area; and

identifying the one or more information items, wherein the one or more information items provide additional information needed to verify or complete the existing information.

18. A system for facilitating a virtual inspection of an insurable area, the system comprising:

a client application installed at a user mobile device; and

a server for hosting the client application, the server comprising;

one or more processors; and

a machine-readable medium including instructions stored therein, which when executed by the processors, cause the processors to perform operations including;

receiving a request from the mobile device to perform a virtual inspection of a insurable area;

determining one or more information items needed with respect to the insurable area;

providing a set of instructions to the user at the mobile device for capturing one or more image items based on the determined one or more information items;

receiving a set of image items from the mobile device in response to the instructions;

analyzing the set of image items; and

extracting at least one of the one or more information items from the set of image items.

19. The system of claim 18, the operations further comprising:

providing an insurance decision for the insurable area based on the at least one of the one or more information items.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the set of age data include one or more of videos or still images.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for execution by a processor to perform a method for facilitating a virtual inspection of an insurable area, the method including the steps of:

receiving an indication of a request from a user at a user mobile device to perform a virtual inspection of an insurable area;

determining one or more information items needed with respect to the insurable area;

providing a set of instructions to the user at the mobile device for capturing one or more image items based on the determined one or more information items, the instructions identifying a list of areas of the insurable area;

receiving a set of image items from the mobile device in response to the instructions, the set of image items providing images from one or more of the list of areas of the insurable area; and

providing an insurance decision for the insurable area based on the received set of image items.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21, the method further including the steps of:

analyzing the set of image items; and

extracting at least one of the one or more information items from the set of image items.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 21, the method further including the steps of:

identifying one or more areas of the insurable area.