B2C platform for an Insurtech company
Covered by Sage is an American start-up that was started in the year 2018. It is a technology-driven insurance brokerage company that combines cutting-edge tech and modern consumerism with old-fashioned human-touch. The New York City-based start-up secured a $6 million seed funding round to help transform the role of independent retail agents in today’s insurance ecosystem. They were aiming to build their first business to customer insurance buying platform.
Goal
To build the first B2C insurance buying platform for the company that is user tested and funding ready for the second round of funding.
Role
Senior Product Designer
(Defining Scope with PM ,Research, Ideation, Information Architecture, User Flows, Creating the Design System, Making Iterations for Visual design, GUI, Defining the interaction design, Illustrator, Planning and Conducting User Testing, Stakeholder management, Workshop facilitator, Dev Handoff, Design QA )
Result
The company was able to raise their second round of funding , a total of $42.9 million.
The UX metrics below helped elevate business metrics with improved conversion and retention.
Error Reduction
Rate
70%
Avg Task Success Rates
85%
Net Promoter
Score
+80
Preliminary versions
Below are the initial low fidelity concepts. I built these concepts in the web version first for efficiency so that the basic structure would be validated easily during user testing.
HYPOTHESIS 1
A first time user would enter the platform based on various intents, while some would enter with the intent of making an account , others would do so with the intent of getting quotes and yet others would prefer to do a risk assessment before getting quotes and still others would rather use the platform to manage their existing policies.
HYPOTHESIS 2
Shorter the fact finder quicker the task completion , better the conversion.
Entry point : Through Signing Up and Onboarding :
fig: Overview of the steps and flow of this iteration. The full version is here
B: Design Strategy
GOAL
Based on the insights --- reducing drop- off rates and increase conversion rates by addressing all pain points during onboarding, quoting and managing policies
HMW
How might we enable users to complete intended tasks or reach their goals with minimal obstacles (the tasks completions were our defined conversion goals)
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
TRUST, DELIGHT, CLARITY
Strategy
A: Stakeholder management
Getting design approval was a complex process involving product owners, legal, tech leads, Design Head, CEO . It was time-consuming, and the diverse feedback often added layers of complication. In order to resolve these issues arising especially due to REMOTE WORK DURING COVID. I adopted the following Stake holder management strategy .
So what do people really want from an insurance buying platform
Clustering all the insights the overall user needs were :
Part 3: Policies Management
Key user insights were:
Synthesis
Part 1: Onboarding
Key user insights during the onboarding sign up process were:
Part 2: Quoting
Key user insights were:
Methodology
Tools used
Figma , Miro, Adobe After effects,
Project team
Initially 3 designers
(1 senior, 2 junior) and then solo , 1 project manager, 5 developers
Key Challenge
Primarily the challenge was to build the first B2C insurance buying platform
Other Challenges
Unclear goals
While the brief was to build the insurance platform there was no clear direction as to what this would entail.
Remote work during COVID
Navigating remote work when the pandemic was still quite fresh and figuring out efficient ways of working
User research participants
Reaching out to users who were willing to give their time for the project was difficult during the pandemic. Additionally tools like Zoom and Web Ex that we now see as normal were unfamiliar territory for people and there was reluctance to participate, given the extra effort and the trying times.
Requirements Gathering
I identified key stakeholders, the CEO, Head of Design and the PM for this project and had a short conversations with each of them to understand their expectations.
Below is a short summary.
What are we building?
An insurance buying platform that aims to be a simple , smart insurance aggregator.
Who is it for ?
Young professionals who are digital natives and tech savvy and are FTU of our platform.
What must it do ?
It must be able to successfully cater to the needs of an insurance buyer and be user approved and investor ready for the company
Scoping
I organised a workshop to define the product, and create a clear plan of action. The work shop also helped address any blockers and helped establish a tentative timeline.
Additionally it helped resolve one of the challenges UNCLEAR GOALS.
An over view of the outcome is documented below.
Problem Understanding
As mentioned earlier due to the challenge of LACK OF USER RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS, alternative research methods had to be used, the ones that I relied on are :
Competitor Analysis
This allowed insight on existing platforms as well as enhanced domain knowledge ( along with materials provided by the company)
UX Audit
Conducted for these competitors helped unearth existing UX issues that users could be encountering
Additional Secondary Research
Conducted for these competitors helped unearth existing UX issues that users could be encountering
Expert Interviews
As the company already had expert who had worked in the field of insurance leveraging their knowledge and conducting interviews with them helped unearth problems.
fig: an overview of the competitors documented in an excel
Building
APPROACH
Moving from what is to what can be
figs : An overview of the user flows that were initially worked on along with the PM and later ideated with the design team. The full version from Miro is here
Entry point : Get Quotes
fig: Overview of the steps and flow of this iteration. The full version is here
