j.mcclay
SMB auto insurance innovation
designing a market-leading d2c insurance product

An insurance company wanted to bring a new, digital-first small business auto insurance product to market to replace their current product, which agents avoided at all costs.

My team designed both the agent and D2C customer experiences, working closely with agents and small business owners to understand needs and validate the solution. The product was launched shortly after our project concluded.

Insurance company | design lead | 2020

I led the design team as we analyzed the current state painpoints, defined a north star, developed experience concepts, and partnered with the product strategy team to design the new product. The new experience provided instant quotes and reduced the number of questions by over 50%, while empowering their entire agent network to sell confidently.

PHASE 1
Research
  • Conducted agent interviews and surveys, customer interviews and surveys, competitive assessment, and stakeholder interviews
  • Developed journeymap and insights to drive alignment and ideation
  • Created agent mindsets as a provocative and actionable framework for identifying opportunities to drive sales enablement
PHASE 2
North Star
  • Defined small business vision for the parent company, mission for the commercial insurance division, experience principles, and metrics
  • Developed 12 concepts for agents and customers across key phases of the journey
PHASE 3
Concepting
  • Identified and developed representative wireframes for experience features and their components
  • Conducted validation testing with agents and customers to assess relevance and impact of features
PHASE 4
Launch & Evolve
  • Prioritized features and components for MVP based on feedback
  • Collaborated with strategy team to define product and design screens
  • Built agent experience prototype and managed team building customer prototype
  • Validated designs with agents and customers, documenting learnings

ARTIFACTS

agent prototype

The Agent experience served as the agent-facing quote and bind interface. It followed the same question set as the customers, but the layout and tools were optimized to support agents.

Previously, the agents lacked knowledge about the product and there were no resources to support their sales efforts. Our designs walked agents through the process step-by-step while including a Notes column so they could track important info from conversations. We also demonstrated how AI could be integrated to provide insights and tips to agents live while they’re talking to customers.

I built the prototype in a day or two in Axure. The experience could be guided or self-directed, and descriptive text could be shown/hidden.

Journeymap

The Journeymap documented the current state sales process, as well as the various barriers that caused agents and customers to abandon. Included are the goals, actors, activities, quotes, and painpoints at key phases in the journey.

We walked the CEO through the journeymap, as it offered a detailed and comprehensive perspective at the convoluted process.

agent strategies

In its (historical) current state, less than 10% of the agent workforce tried to sell the auto product, and many avoided selling it altogether. I developed the Agent Strategies to articulate the dynamic between agency focus on selling the product and their reliance on Allstate resources.

This framework not only gave us four distinct strategies to design against, but also highlight the opportunity to design for transitioning agents between strategies – the top right corner was most profitable for both Allstate and agents.