Streamlining Commercial Insurance

with an End-to-End Underwriting Platform

  • The client is a leading provider of commercial insurance solutions, catering to brokers who submit insurance applications on behalf of companies requiring coverage.

    The initiative aims to develop an end-to-end underwriting platform, encompassing quoting, binding, and issuing insurance policies for commercial insurance. The platform also features a workload management page to prioritize submissions, optimizing underwriters' time and improving overall efficiency.

  • The primary users are Underwriters handling a high volume of submissions, who need to quickly generate quotes for brokers to maintain competitiveness in the market. They require rapid assessment of submissions to determine portfolio suitability, risk level, and profitability. Additionally, their managers review submissions to make informed decisions on whether to proceed with quoting or declining, necessitating efficient and transparent processes.

  • Automation: Develop an end-to-end underwriting platform to automate manual processes, reducing handling time and improving overall efficiency.

    Cycle Time Reduction: Improve underwriter efficiency through process and technical improvements. The goal is a 40% reduction in cycle time from 5-6 days from submission to issuance to ~3 days.

    Profitability: Increase profitability by accelerating speed to market and enabling underwriters to focus on higher quality accounts. The goal is 10% growth in profitability.

    Data Integrity: Enhance data integrity by implementing measures to ensure accuracy and completeness throughout the underwriting process.

  • Quoting, Binding, and Issuing: The platform will provide seamless functionality for generating quotes, binders, and issuing policies for insurance, streamlining the entire underwriting lifecycle.

    Workload Management: Underwriters will be able to prioritize submissions efficiently, ensuring that high-quality accounts receive appropriate attention and resources.

    Automation: Automated processes are expected to reduce manual intervention, cutting down handling time and improving overall cycle time.

My Role: Lead UX Research

As a UX Architect, my role has been multifaceted and pivotal to the success of this initiative. Serving as the driving force behind user experience research, I've played a central role in shaping the platform's functionality and usability.

UX Research Leadership: Leading UX research efforts across multiple portfolio teams, I've conducted pre-discovery workshops with the wider product team, stakeholder and user interviews, and a weekly SME meeting to gain deep insights into the needs and pain points of stakeholders and end users.

Journey Mapping: Developed a comprehensive current state journey map to analyze the existing underwriting process, identifying pain points and understanding process timing. Worked with the process owner to design a target state journey map to show recommended improvements, including anticipated time savings from increased efficiencies and elimination of redundancies.

Team Management: In addition to my own contributions, I've managed other UX professionals, guiding their efforts in conducting research and synthesizing findings. By fostering a collaborative environment, I've facilitated knowledge sharing and cross-functional alignment, ensuring that research insights inform design decisions.

Collaborative Design and Development: By collaborating closely with process owners, product owners, designers, and developers, I've ensured alignment of research insights across the various product teams working on this initiative. By translating user insights into actionable design decisions, I've guided the development of intuitive interfaces and seamless workflows that prioritize user needs and enhance efficiency.

Testing and Iteration: Conducting iterative testing and validation, I've worked with designers to ensure iterative designs drive the platform's functionality based on user feedback. This is to ensure that the platform meets the evolving needs and expectations of stakeholders and end users.