The confidential information in this case study has been altered.
Content
This case study includes 1 overall intro, and 8 challenges that present the design processes and solutions to primary issues across the Insurance Distribution:
- Overall Introduction (7 mins)
- Channel 1 — Product & Plan Selection (4 mins)
- Channel 2 — Information Set (3 mins)
- Schedule — Structure Defining (6 mins)
- Goal 1 — Goal Setting (4 mins)
- Goal 2 — Performance Dashboard (4 mins)
- Compensation 2 — Expert’s Workflow (4 mins)
Background
Product distribution is one of the most essential operations in the insurance industry. As the trend of E-COMMERCE, more and more insurance companies in Asia seek the opportunities from digital channels with micro-coverage products on every aspect of people’s daily life.
From May to Dec in 2021 – 8 months, I was working on a whole new functionality that stood alone from our core platform called Distribution, which aimed to manage the digital channels, monitor the performance at distribution, and calculate the compensation across regions.
Client
Regarding the different roles in distribution. From the online survey, client interviews and consultant insights, I collected information of KEY USERS to focus on:
Insurers & Administrators
” I have multiple representatives to sell our products for us, how do I manage them via the technology? “
Channel Managers
” I will set goals for my representatives, how do I monitor their performance? ”
Actuaries & Finances
” Some representatives may be e-commerce platforms, but some have 100+ agents? How do I efficiently calculate their compensation? “
Goal
To provide a fast-implemented solution that serves the 3 MAIN OPERATIONS in the insurance Distribution and enhance the business with company’ clients in the long-term:
Operation Management
Channel - Setup and manage distribution channels from diverse representatives.
Policy - Show basic info of all policies from customers in channels.
Review Request - Review and approve the important actions in distribution.
Performance Monitoring
Goal - Setup goals for different channels and reward them when goals were achieved.
Dashboard - Monitor and compare the performance of different channels.
Compensation Calculation
Schedule - Calculate the commission based on sold products for channels.
Compensation - Manage and adjust the financial records of channels.
Role
My role was to lead, drive the module design process and worked with a Jr. PM to deliver the final functional requirement and demonstrate a MVP for clients. My responsibility was across use case survey, user research, experience design, project management, and partial UI design.
1. Conducted multiple research and user interviews to verify the use cases. 2. Analyzed and organized the requirements, and defined the problems. 3. Created user journey, I.A., and wireframe to communicate with stakeholders. 4. Created the sketch interactive prototype for usability testing. 5. Collaborated with 2 UI designers to create the high-fidelity mockups. 6. Reviewed UI acceptance before each part was brought into development. 7. Followed up new scenario appears along the business strategy planning.
Challenge
Business
A scalable and user-friendly module that targets any size of insurance companies in the markets of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and operate with no dependency on other modules in company’s core platform.
Industry
Insurance industry is confidential on information, the business research and survey were particularly difficult to conduct. Also, people in this industry tend to follow strict rules in every practices with caution on changes, including digitalization and innovation.
User Experience
The end users of this product were mostly non-technical users. However, the configuration of compensation calculation were heavy on coding or the visual interface, which creates huge barriers to end users.
Culture
Regardless of the online research and feedback from company’s clients, this company largely relies on insurance consultants with non-product-dev backgrounds for providing insights and validating solutions throughout projects.
Project Walkthrough
Rough Start
I joined this project when a preliminary research and client interview had been conducted previously. But the findings didn’t provide enough insights into practices in distribution operations since interviewees were mostly restricted from sharing details with us.
A group product manager as project leader who was transferred to another division during resource shuffling. Therefore, a junior product manager took over this massive project and was required to deliver it as a major KPI in Q1 2022.
I delivered the first draft based on the user journey & research that PMs conducted. However, the module direction we went with didn’t precisely meet the requirements of consultants given that the workflow didn’t quite match the common practice in distribution.
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User Journey
From a thorough survey on competitors, I helped the Jr. product manager to reorganize story maps and recreate user journeys. After that, we presented what we gathered as charts to check with all consultants.
A question that I was pondering — As the project was going along, HOW to put all pieces together and know if they were the right ones while we constantly discovered new scenarios in distribution operations?
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Project Scope
In order to define the scope, I conducted multiple surveys on the most essential requirements in this project, such as compensation schedule, channel setup, and performance dashboard.
I created a structure chart of Distribution features to communicate with stakeholders and consultants. And subsequently narrowed down the scope of target audiences we served.
We had a golden opportunity to interview a seasoned expert who has 20+ years of experience in traditional channels’ distribution. I prepared the questionnaire to dig out valuable insights.
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Strategy Redirected
The major strategy and business requirements were changed to not support insurance brokers and agencies as traditional channels with complex organization structure and sales hierarchy. Therefore, I removed designs related to agent management and agent compensation.
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Insight Documentation
A main barrier was encountered during the communication with consultants who do not speak product design. I worked on converting our questions from computer settings into insurance contexts.
I decided to have a different approach for the discussion and decision-making on the requirements we scoped in, given that my ideation was strictly based on collected insights, use cases, and scenarios.
I put extra effort into organizing the findings ensuring that they were the right pieces. Therefore, we could go back to review fundamental findings first before I proceed with any changes to the design.
Solution
Part 1 — Channel Setup Workflow
“ When is the right time to create a whole new component on a platform that develops all components on their own?
“ How to define the information set for channel from scratch, also, how intact the info has no functional action should be? “
Part 2 — Schedule Structure & Review Request
“ How to help non-technical users to set up the formula for compensation calculation effortlessly?
“ How to make the review process more intuitive for different kinds of changes across the module?
Part 3 — Goal Setting & Performance Dashboard
“ How to pick up the right insights and know they’re the valuable ones during exploration?
“ How to figure out which targets or key indicators users would like to monitor?
Part 4 — Compensation Table & Policy Management
“ How to display the info right for the experts in a certain area in which I have no related experience?
“ How to ensure the workflow I designed fits the common practice of experts intuitively?
Outcome
1. The final design was well approved and brought into development. 2. Launched at company’s clients and other markets at the same time in Q1 2022.
Reflection
1. Always discuss the design based on fundamental assumptions and insights, and validate new findings with available experts as frequently as possible. 2. Any design decision that relates to seemingly irrelevant information should never be overlooked given the habit of strict documentation in this industry. 3. A constant process of weighing up pros and cons, and evaluating the tradeoff between business strategy, development resources, and user experience. 4. Exhausting possibilities when lacking insights don’t always work since some mathematically possible contexts may not exist in actual practice.
Achievements
1. Facilitated the communication and decision-making in product development. 2. Led a massive project and managed the design process from start to end. 3. Enhanced the relationship with company’s clients for the long term.
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