ISCx
BACKGROUND
To maximize topline growth, ISC must ensure coordination between the insureds, brokers, and underwriters are seamless.
ISC is shifting into a growth phase, focusing on scaling its offerings and market presence. There was an opportunity to reimagine how insurance can be sold in B2B and B2C markets.
BUSINESS NEED
Leadership plans to create a whole new experience to increase visibility of insurance offerings and speed up Broker and Underwriter workflows.
GOAL
Empower brokers to bring in more business and empower underwriters to review applications more quickly.
CHALLENGE
RESEARCH
I learned the process brokers and underwriters use today is disjointed and time-consuming, resulting in slow responses from both parties.
Our Users
BROKERS
Individuals who submit applications and communicate with the insured.
UNDERWRITERS
Reviewers who decline or approve insurance applications.
Research goals
Which sold coverages are brokers aware of?
How do brokers prioritize which insureds to follow up with?
What slows down the underwriting process?
How do underwriters review applications today?
Key takeaways
BROKERS WORK IN HIGH VELOCITY
Brokers receive many submissions and need to find the insured candidates that have the highest probability of binding an insurance policy.
UNDERWRITING REVIEW IS CUMBERSOME
Underwriters have very specific contextual underwriting guidelines based on the coverage being sold.
PROBLEM TO SOLVE
STRATEGY
I understood my solution for brokers needed to be flexible because each broker works differently, and my solution for underwriters needed to be streamlined so they can review applications quickly.
Guiding principles
From user insights, I understood these principles needed to be true in order for my solution to be successful.
PRIORITIZE SPEED
Brokers are commonly racing against the clock
MAINTAIN FLEXIBILITY
Different brokers have different ways of working
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Back and forth communication between insureds, brokers, and underwriters.
PROVIDE CONCISE DATA
Underwriters look out for concise data points
Broker and Underwriter Journey
To simplify complexity, I outlined the broker and underwriter journey into four distinct phases.
FILL OUT & SUBMIT APPLICATION
Find leads who are interested in purchasing insurance.
Approves or declines submitted application.
If approved, review quote and request signatures from insured.
Finalize and bind the insurance policy.
QUICK-WINS
First, I identified small enhancements within the existing application experience to take advantage of available engineering bandwidth.
Developing a comprehensive solution was going to take some time. To assure our team remained productive, there was an opportunity to quickly enhance the existing broker application experience.
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
The previous application had the broker fill out all the application questions in one single page. This introduced high cognitive load, which led to brokers having to scroll a lot to find specific pieces of information.
WHY IT MATTERS
The broker experience is critical to ensure the company can continually receive insurance submissions in timely manner. Lowering cognitive burden of long pages encourages retention.
ABILITY TO VIEW NUMBER OF SECTIONS
Provides brokers transparency on how many steps there are for filling out an application.
TRUNCATED PAGES
Spreading out questions across a number of pages so that the broker doesn't have to scroll endlessly.
SOLUTIONS
Next, I identified three opportunities to help with acquiring more users and seeing value quickly.
Marketplace Landing Page
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Brokers were not aware of all the insurance offerings that ISC provided as they were split across various platforms.
WHY IT MATTERS
Different brokers sell different insurance coverages. This page helped increase the number of users using our platform and the number of submisisons.
Adding Price Indication
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Brokers originally had to answer pages of application questions before receiving a quote. Now, brokers had to only answer a few questions to receive a quote.
WHY IT MATTERS
Receiving a quote faster allows brokers to potentially bind policies faster by giving pricing information faster to the insured.
Introducing Sales Pipeline
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Brokers lacked critical data to effectively prioritize lead follow-ups, and the existing solution failed to support personalization, making it difficult to accommodate the diverse workflows of individual brokers.
WHY IT MATTERS
Providing brokers with critical data such as sorting by 'Created Date' and filtering by 'E-sign' status. This speeds up the broker workflow to maximize chances of binding new policies.
Improved Underwriter View for Applications
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Underwriters did not have a simple way to quickly view and assess the risk of applications for insureds.
WHY IT MATTERS
The time spent per application for an underwriter is reduced by having a concise a high-level overview of the insured application.
INNOVATION
To reduce time spent per application for underwriters, I integrated 3rd party data and AI for a more streamlined underwriting experience.
Integrated 3rd Party Data (CAB Data, TransU, Hazard Hub)
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Underwriters spend a lot of time opening and digging through the details of the insurance application to review any risks of the insured.
WHY IT MATTERS
Having key data points allows underwriters review applications more quickly and bring in more business.
Integrating AI for Intelligent Document Processing and Auto-Declination Rules
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Underwriters no longer need to sift through disorganized and unlabeled file attachments or go through applications that would eventually be declined.
WHY IT MATTERS
Underwriters can easily find documents and ensure required documents are attached. They also will review less poor quality applications with auto-declination.
ENABLING DESIGN EXECUTION
I spearheaded the effort to incorporate Hotjar, a user behavior analytics tools to ensure our product decision are data-driven.
Beta Users
Voiced similar points
Used Hotjar to gather user feedback and analytics
Hearing from our users allowed us to enhance our product experience for endorsements:
PROBLEM THIS SOLVED
Underwriters did not have a clear idea of when endorsements would be applied to an insurance policy.
WHY IT MATTERS
By organizing endorsements by effective date, underwriter can easily view cost impact in changes made to the insurance policy and when they take into effect.
DESIGN SYSTEM
I documented our UI component library to ensure consistency across all our products and increased productivity and completion of design tasks by 2x.
IMPACT
revenue increase
underwriting efficiency
faster design completion