Responsive website taking the frustration out of the insurance purchasing experience
Camu Insurance is a startup that offers a wide-range of personal insurance policies, everything from health to auto.
Camu is also hoping to gain the trust and business of their target user, the digitally-savvy millennial, and will need a responsive website to do so.
Category
Product Design; Brand Identity
Team
Independent project
Digitally-savvy millennials are frustrated with their insurance interactions and have little trust in their insurance providers. Insurance websites are also difficult to understand and navigate, further causing distress to the insurance experience.
I designed Camu's responsive website with the goal of creating a trustworthy insurance purchasing experience across all devices for the digitally-savvy millennial.
The project scope was focused on the end-to-end insurance purchase path, from starting a quote to making the final purchase.
A delightful quote process
The progress bar adds a sprinkle of joy and increases form completion rate. Natural, conversational language also helps users feel at ease.
Instant chat with a real agent
From my user research, it was apparent that having an instant online chat option served by a support team of real people was extremely crucial.
Coverage without the jargon
It was important for Camu to eliminate the insurance jargon and use simple coverage explanations. Users can also further customize their personalized coverage details.
My main research goal was to find out what factors create a positive and trustworthy insurance experience for millennials.
I first read the existing research to understand millennials’ insurance purchasing behavior and expectations. My main insights included:
Low insurance loyalty.
Compared to older generations, millennials are the most disengaged with their insurance carriers. This can translate to higher price sensitivity and customer retention issues.
Digital-first expectations.
Millennials are tech savvy and expect the rapid delivery of goods and services, so therefore companies should prioritize a digital-first experience.
Opportunity to convey value.
According to a Safeco survey, millennials care the most about comprehensive coverage vs. the lowest price. This shows the importance of communicating a policy’s comprehensive value.
Then, I evaluated the user experiences provided by competitors. I discovered a mismatch between my research of what millennial consumers expect vs. the current insurance experiences provided:
Paradox of choice. It feels overwhelming when the homepage immediately lists out all of the company’s policy choices and offers too many unnecessary navigation pages, which leads to lower conversion rates.
Lengthy forms without progress. Online quote forms are excessively long and detailed, while not providing holistic indicators of the user’s form progress.
Phone call for help. Opposite of millennials’ digital-first expectations, the majority of insurance companies require users to call for help and online chatbots only answer FAQs.
I interviewed 5 millennials users to better understand how users feel about their past insurance interactions.
“Calling is a hassle... especially since young people are used to searching up things on their own.”
“If I find something that’s more affordable or has better coverage for me, I would switch.”
“Choosing insurance is so stressful, and everything is just filled with jargon.”
I also didn’t expect to uncover some of these additional insights, which could potentially affect how Camu should position their business:
Price tolerance based on perceived risk. When the perceived risk is low, price is the #1 factor when choosing a policy (e.g., most renters insurance). But when the risk is higher, coverage matters more (e.g., health insurance with health concerns).
Asking for help as the last resort. Millennials will always try to find answers from the insurance website first before contacting customer service. This further underscores the importance of having an intuitive information architecture.
Customer service, but online only. For online chat, a real human is better than an AI chatbot. I knew that users didn’t like calling customer service, but I didn’t expect they would still want to talk to a real human — except just online.
Camu offers 16 different insurance products, so it’s crucial that users can easily find what they need. In an online open card sort, users expected to find the products in the following 4 categories:
Based on this discovery, I created a site map to provide a visual overview of all the navigable pages and ensure that the information architecture is intuitive.
With the design problem in mind, I rapidly sketched out different versions of the homepage and quote process, sharing the homepage ideas with 10 target users for feedback and preference testing.
Homepage. Users preferred a simple and conventional homepage that displayed the product groupings immediately below the hero section, and they also don’t trust cherry-picked reviews. With everybody’s feedback, I was able to choose the page sections that resonated the most with users.
After honing in on my sketched ideations, I converted the core quote flow into mid-fidelity wireframes to see how the screens would be responsively laid out. I found it helpful to first write out the copy on mobile and eliminate unnecessary copy to better fit the smaller screen size.
To bring Camu’s brand to life, the UI choices needed to exude warmth, trustworthiness, and approachability in order to captivate the young millennial audience.
I then designed out Camu’s high-fidelity screens, from starting a quote to completing an insurance purchase.
I tested the high-fidelity prototype of the main insurance purchase flow with target users to uncover the following insights that led to my next priority changes:
Enhance clarity and think about non-native speakers. I changed the homepage CTA button copy from “Get my price” to “Start a quote,” as non-native English speakers didn’t associate “Get my price” with starting the quote process.
Consider if the page design fits with the use case. At first, I designed the payment details form as a pop-up modal instead of a separate page. The pop-up modal made it too easy for users to quickly exit out and not move forward to payment.
Even forms can be made delightful. Users didn’t like inputting answers for the quote form, and the real root problem was it’s just never fun to fill out any type of form. I added delight by turning the progress bar into a speeding car heading to a stop sign, which also made users more likely to complete the form.
Results. Camu Insurance received exceptional positive feedback with the final prototype. Users found the website extremely easy to understand and the quote form pleasant to go through.
“I love how welcoming Camu feels — I wish that my insurance company could make me feel this way.”
“These coverage descriptions actually make sense! I’d definitely feel comfortable paying for this.”
What I’ve Learned. I learned that clear and concise copy is the foundation for a website’s trustworthiness and helps convert users into customers. It’s important to break down complex ideas and jargon, especially for something as confusing as insurance — the last thing a company would want is for their users to use another tab to conduct more research. Therefore by putting users first, business goals can also be better achieved as well.