Plan selection interface in the virtual insurance purchase flow.

OneDegree, 2020

Redesign Purchase Flow of Virtual Insurance of Pet

At-A-Glance

The team set out to redesign OneDegree’s pet insurance purchase experience with a goal of creating a simpler, more user-friendly flow.

The Product team worked closely with the Risk and Actuarial teams to streamline underwriting questions and deliver an efficient, transparent solution for users. As a member of the Product team, I focused on responsive design to ensure a seamless experience across both mobile and desktop devices, as OneDegree is a web-based platform.

As OneDegree’s first insurance product, this scalable flow was crafted as a framework to support future products, ensuring consistency and adaptability for new offerings.

The team set out to redesign OneDegree’s pet insurance purchase experience with a goal of creating a simpler, more user-friendly flow.

The Product team worked closely with the Risk and Actuarial teams to streamline underwriting questions and deliver an efficient, transparent solution for users.

As a member of the Product team, I focused on responsive design to ensure a seamless experience across both mobile and desktop devices, as OneDegree is a web-based platform.

As OneDegree’s first insurance product, this scalable flow was crafted as a framework to support future products, ensuring consistency and adaptability for new offerings.

Timeline

Jul - Aug 2020: Main purchase flow

Sep - Oct 2020: Promo code for purchase flow (omitted in this case study)

Deliverables

UX design of purchase flow and promo code features. Established a purchase flow framework for other insurance products.

Contributors

In this project, I worked closely with a PM, a UI designer, and 3 front-end engineers.

Jump to section

01 Background

02 Challenge

03 Process

04 Finding & Ideation

05 Key Design Outcome

06 Impact

07 Reflection in 2024

01 Background

When I joined the OneDegree virtual insurance team, the team was preparing to migrate policies and customer data from an open-source system to the system developed by another team within OneDegree.

Our goal was to redesign the pet insurance purchase experience by April 2021, creating a more streamlined, user-friendly flow that improved both the visuals and user experience from Pet 1.0.

02 Challenge

Without agents and brokers' help,

customers have to finish purchasing the insurance product on their own.

Problem of users

Stuck when answering the underwriting questions

Users must answer their pets' microchip numbers and medical history in the underwriting section. First, users might not have those documents handy when purchasing, and most cats don’t have microchip numbers (Dogs are required by law to get microchips, but cats don't). Secondly, it's hard for people to understand symptom names in English even though Hongkongers speak English a lot in their daily lives. And users may not know what all the symptoms refer to in Chinese as well.

Stuck when answering the underwriting questions

Users must answer their pets' microchip numbers and medical history in the underwriting section.

First, users might not have those documents handy when purchasing, and most cats don’t have microchip numbers (Dogs are required by law to get microchips, but cats don't).

Secondly, it's hard for people to understand symptom names in English even though Hongkongers speak English a lot in their daily lives. And users may not know what all the symptoms refer to in Chinese as well.

The anxiety of learning insurance product

Users were worried they can't understand the specific terms without a broker or an agent introducing policy terms and conditions to them. The anxiety caused from users think there might be some hidden agenda behind the policy because of the stereotype from the traditional insurance purchase experience, so users would try to ask customer service for help.

The anxiety of learning insurance product

Users were worried they can't understand the specific terms without a broker or an agent introducing policy terms and conditions to them.

The anxiety caused from users think there might be some hidden agenda behind the policy because of the stereotype from the traditional insurance purchase experience, so users would try to ask customer service for help.

Problem of insurance operation team

Plenty of redundant questions to answer

OneDegree was a young start-up insurance company when our pet insurance first launched in 2020, and our customer service team was small (around 3-5 people). Due to customers' learning anxiety about policy, our customer service team was occupied with answering those redundant questions related to coverage details, policy terms, policy timeline, etc. Hence, the customer service team lacked resources, and they couldn't support the more critical issues.

Plenty of redundant questions to answer

OneDegree was a young start-up insurance company when our pet insurance first launched in 2020, and our customer service team was small (around 3-5 people).

Due to customers' learning anxiety about policy, our customer service team was occupied with answering those redundant questions related to coverage details, policy terms, policy timeline, etc.

Hence, the customer service team lacked resources, and they couldn't support the more critical issues.

Problem Statement:

A lack of insurance knowledge stops users from continuing the flow.
We need to find ways to help users get what they need!

03 Process

Design process of the virtual insurance platform, Pet2.0.

Since we want to provide a purchase experience that is different from traditional insurance services, the challenges were how do we build the flow simple while it is transparent and legal at the same time.

After defining problems and initial ideation, we invited stakeholders professionals in insurance, such as members of the Risk team and Actuarial team, to have two rounds of design critique to ensure our flow obeys the insurance rules and law.

IA flow of Pet 2.0 Purchase

UX flow ideation

04 Finding & Ideation

After analyzing the customers’ feedback sheet provided by the customer service team, PM and I had some findings, and we set them as our hypothesis.

Why couldn’t user understand the policy coverage?

Information wasn't well grouping

Some information was related but wasn't on the same page in Pet 1.0, so when users couldn't get all the info they wanted, it would stop them from moving to the next step.

Information was hidden or insufficient

Some of the information was hidden as default, and users had to click to expand more details. It isn’t very pleasant for users to interact with every column.

Other information was the things users cared about, but we didn’t provide in the flow, such as policy effective date, waiting period, and policy end date.

Information interrupted users to continue

Virtual insurance allows users to purchase a policy anywhere and anytime. They might purchase on a bus or anywhere else but not sit in front of their desk. Customer mostly doesn’t get those documents handy, so when the flow ask users to provide their pet’s microchip and medical history, it would also let the flow stop.

Information interrupted users to continue

Virtual insurance allows users to purchase a policy anywhere and anytime. They might purchase on a bus or anywhere else but not sit in front of their desk.

Customer mostly doesn’t get those documents handy, so when the flow ask users to provide their pet’s microchip and medical history, it would also let the flow stop.

3 Core Principles

Based on our hypothesis, I defined 3 principles that I complied with when designing the new experience.

Make information understandable

Most of the users are scared of the insurance terms while there are no agents and brokers to explain to them, and some of the insurance rules aren’t that intuitive. We work very hard on the UX writing of how to make people understand the benefit rules. And provide the sample policy for those with advanced knowledge of insurance to avoid possible disputes.

Make information understandable

Most of the users are scared of the insurance terms while there are no agents and brokers to explain to them, and some of the insurance rules aren’t that intuitive.

We work very hard on the UX writing of how to make people understand the benefit rules.

And provide the sample policy for those with advanced knowledge of insurance to avoid possible disputes.

For example, there’s a concept called “Deductible”, which means policyholders have to afford the cost partly, this is more passively to understand.

People usually care about how many benefits can they take, instead of counting how much they have to pay when having a claim.

So we turned this concept into “Reimbursement Rate”, users can directly get how much money can they get from insurance companies.

Pet 2.0 Plan Table on Pet Insurance Landing Page

Pet 2.0 Plan Table on Pet Insurance Landing Page

Make information accessible

We usually show the most concise information on the page to let the page look clean and comfortable. Users would like to know the advanced info if they are interested in the topic; we have to make this kind of info accessible.

Make information accessible

We usually show the most concise information on the page to let the page look clean and comfortable.

Users would like to know the advanced info if they are interested in the topic; we have to make this kind of info accessible.

For example, in Pet 1.0, when viewing the plan table, users would like to know about coverage.

Users might stop on the plan page and try to ask for more details from customer service even though the coverage info was on the next page just because they didn’t see it on plan page.

Plans and coverage table in Pet 1.0 Purchase Flow

Plans and coverage table in Pet 1.0 Purchase Flow

After realizing this behavior, we use a pop-up modal to display the coverage details instead of showing the coverage table in another page.

Plans and coverage table in Pet 2.0 Purchase Flow

Users can provide supplemental documents later

When purchasing a policy, we need users to provide some documents to ensure their identities. These documents would not affect the pricing and underwriting results. We allow users to offer them after purchasing to avoid being stuck when purchasing.

Users can provide supplemental documents later

When purchasing a policy, we need users to provide some documents to ensure their identities.

These documents would not affect the pricing and underwriting results. We allow users to offer them after purchasing to avoid being stuck when purchasing.

05 Design Outcome

This is a recording of me reviewing the testing front-end page. Let’s dive into some design breakdowns!

Reorganized the information in the purchase flow

Using Plan Selections Page as an example, I did some rough research on what information users usually want to know during purchase. Based on the result, I reorganized the information on the page, so that users can solve most of the problems on their own when they are confused.

Using Plan Selections Page as an example, I did some rough research on what information users usually want to know during purchase.

Based on the result, I reorganized the information on the page, so that users can solve most of the problems on their own when they are confused.

Many users ask about the clinic list when they see the reimbursement rates are different between network and non-networks.

We provide a list’s entrance by the content, so they don’t have to ask customer service anymore.

Instead of only listing covered and not covered items for users, we also group related conditions together for users’ better understanding.

Ask customers to provide documents later

We let users provide the required info later, which won't affect pricing and underwriting results.

This helps us increase policyholders of cat owners cause most cats don't have microchip numbers (Dogs are required by law to get microchips, but cats don't), so cat owners won't be stuck when purchasing. They can buy the insurance first and then send microchip numbers to us.

We let users provide the required info later, which won't affect pricing and underwriting results.

They can buy the insurance first and then send microchip numbers to us.

Skip microchip field in Pet 2.0 purchase flow

Microchip numbers isn’t a “must” info anymore when users are purchasing. Customers can provide it within 14 days after purchase the policy.

Short underwriting question of in Pet 2.0 purchase flow

Instead of letting customers read a long symptom list to find out which condition their pets might exist, we ask another two questions to evaluate the pet's medical history.

06 Impact

Increased 35% policyholders of cat owners

After allowing users to provide microchip numbers after purchase, the policyholder amount of the cat owners increased by about 35%. (Data: 2 weeks after the function is launched)

Reduce the frequently asked questions that our Customer Service Team had to process

The common questions related to coverage and plan were reduced since users can find most of the answers on the page.

We collected a satisfaction survey after users finished the purchase to understand whether customers came across problems during the purchase. According to 3,541 answers, the average score is 4.6 out of 5.

60% of the users feel there’s no problem with the flow. Only 7% of users found that they didn’t understand some of the insurance terms used, and 5% of the users thought that the plan descriptions were unclear.

Become a purchase flow framework for other insurance products

Pet Insurance was the first launched insurance product of OneDegree. It established the structure of our insurance purchase flow. When building a new purchase flow for other insurance products, we follow the same format to ensure users have almost the same experience for different insurance products to decrease the learning curve.

Pet Insurance was the first launched insurance product of OneDegree. It established the structure of our insurance purchase flow.

When building a new purchase flow for other insurance products, we follow the same format to ensure users have almost the same experience for different insurance products to decrease the learning curve.

07 Reflection in 2024

This case study was initially completed in 2022, and I refreshed it in 2024 since I moved my portfolio over to new platform.

I wanted to rewrite the entire case study at first, but ended up with keeping most of the content. Because this case study captures how I framed a project when as a junior UX designer, I can see my growth through it. It’s so meaningful and beautiful to me.

Looking back, the biggest lesson was realizing I hadn’t fully considered how to manage all the different stakeholders.

As a junior UX designer at the time, I was entirely focused on how to make the purchase flow as clear and trustworthy as possible for users—specifically, those purchasing insurance.

While that’s a key result, I now see there were many more stakeholder teams involved than I had understood back then. Besides the core engineering team I worked with, the marketing team I communicated closely with, and the Risk and Actuarial teams mentioned in the case study, I also should have considered input from customer service and claims teams.

If every team could collaborate even more closely on this purchase flow, I’m sure we could deliver an smoother, more complete insurance experience for users with OneDegree.

(Thankfully, even though I hadn’t considered all these stakeholders, our reliable PM (Lynn) and senior designer (Ivy) made sure everyone’s needs were gathered and passed on to me. Huge thanks to them for that!)

Made with 💙 and Fluffy Unicorn Magic.

01 Background

02 Challenge

03 Process

04 Finding & Ideation

05 Design Outcome

06 Impact

07 Reflection in 2024

Section

01 Background

02 Challenge

03 Process

04 Finding & Ideation

05 Design Outcome

06 Impact

07 Reflection in 2024

Section

01 Background

02 Challenge

03 Process

04 Finding & Ideation

05 Design Outcome

06 Impact

07 Reflection in 2024

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