Policy Calculator
Progressive Life Insurance Company's digital tool to calculate a customer's ideal policy
2024
My Role
I collaborated with project managers, strategists, and the data team to define the project scope, establish timelines, and set measurable KPI goals. Building on this foundation, I designed an end-to-end user experience supported by our backend platform, creating high-fidelity designs and a tailored design system for Progressive Life’s educational components using MUI and custom components. To ensure seamless implementation, I worked closely with developers, leveraging Figma’s Dev Mode to streamline communication and design handoffs.
Context & Discovery
Progressive Life Insurance was looking to rethink the customers experience to getting a quote while taking into user's unique needs into consideration. The policy calculator is a tool that customers can use to calculate how much coverage amount and term length they need to support their loved ones, without over paying.
My team
I led the design and user experience while collaborating with strategists, project managers, and engineers. Bi-weekly the project manager and I would present to stakeholders to share process, understand legal risks, and potential blockers.
Problem
Progressive Life's first solution to guiding customers to a quote that is tailored to their personal situation was not getting enough traction. A part of our design teams principles, and the team's mission statement, is to offer comprehensive and transparent quotes that support customers in not overpaying for a policy.
How might we offer a new experience that isn't extensive and tedious, but offers a more tailored quote for a customer that ensures trust in us to apply for a policy?
Solution
As a team we concluded that a calculator tool that is a self initiated user experience would spark trust between the company and the user. We came to this conclusion by:
- conducting user studies to understand what they are looking for
- looking at the current data of the Guided Quote and watched HotJar recordings of active users, trying to understand the pain points
- launching several high fidelity dscout tests to hear from potential users
The Process
User Experience
We designed a user experience that elegantly guides them through filling out questions that applies and/or matters to them that leads them to a coverage amount and term length that would work best for them and their loved ones. All breakpoints and accessibility guidelines were met.
KPIs and Success Metrics
As a team, we wanted to focus on 4 KPIs to evaluate the success of the tool and we took note at the 30 day and 90 day mark. The KPIs were:
- How many people used the Policy Calculator?
- What is the percent of calculator users who started an application, completed an application, and purchased a policy?
- What is the average time spent within the tool?
- Do users seek support within the tool, if so, what are they asking?
Design System
As Progressive Life Insurance continues to grow, so does the design system and need to create custom components. With the calculator tool being unique, it falls outside of the current design system of by MUI. There was an opportunity to create a design system specific to educational components within the Progressive Life platform.
This system uses a different text weight than the rest of the site, and leans into multiple shades of blue to hit to the user that they are still within the Progressive world, but separates them from the core experience: filling out an application. Playful illustrations were intentionally designed and selected to enhance the user's emotions as they are selecting, or collecting, their items that are meaningful to them.
Collaborating with the Development Team
Pairing with front-end and back-end developers, we were able to find a solution that was within scope by strategically placing the entry point of the calculator after the customer has gotten a quote. This is because the calculation needs the customers birthdate, age, and gender to factor in the rest of the calculation. Although possible, it presented itself to be outside of scope. As a team we found a MVE approach that allowed us to focus on the user journey and high fidelity designs.
Preparing for the designs to be inspected by developers, I leveraged Figma's Dev Mode and ensured all designed elements and breakpoints were associated with our current design system, and used Dev Mode annotations to call out custom components and functionalities.
The Results
With set date markers, looking at the data for the first 30 days and the first 90 days, we concluded customers who use the policy calculate are 44% more likely to start and application and 11% more likely to purchase a policy than those who don't use the tool.
Next Steps
The life span of the policy calculator is not over. Now that the tool has been live for several months me and the team strategists plan to enhance the experience to allow for users to start an application directly from the overview page. This supports the business goal to funnel customers into the application to increase policies sold.
