Munich Re
2016 - 2022
UX design for complex and conversion-focused ecosystems
Mobile view of Parachute Life Insurance's home page
Summary
Building the Parachute Insurance Platform
Problem area
The promise: simple, fast and self-serve
Parachute's promise was simple: fast, self-serve insurance, from quote to active coverage in under 10 minutes. Delivering on that promise was anything but. We were digitizing a paper-heavy, broker-led process while building a white-label platform that had to work across B2B and B2C audiences, from carriers, brokers, and employers to individual consumers, all within strict regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions.
Foundations
Preparing to revolutionize insurance
In the early days of the project, I directed an external UX agency designing the new e-commerce platform. I provided product requirements, helped shape research plans, and reviewed personas, user flows, wireframes, and mockups.
Our most complex design requirements
A flexible architecture
White-label platform accommodating products from multiple insurance carriers
100% digital B2B
End-to-end insurance solution for carriers, brokers, employers, and retailers
100% digital B2C
Self-serve product education, digital underwriting, and instant policy issue
Product-specific e-commerce sites
Shared UX patterns across life, health, and commercial products
Co-branded campaigns
Build trust in the new Parachute brand with co-branded emails and sites
A unified member portal
Self-serve management of coverage and claims for multiple products
Brand
Establishing the Parachute brand
I led the in-house content team and oversaw the creation of marketing materials for B2B and B2C audiences, ensuring adherence to the newly created Parachute brand across bilingual UI copy, marketing emails, landing pages, video scripts, and ads.
Product-specific storefronts
I led the customization of bilingual storefronts for each insurance product, translating the policy details into simple language while ensuring compliance with strict regulations for the sale of insurance.
Each storefront we built highlighted that product's unique benefits and options, and used a differentiating colour palette and imagery adapted to the intended audience.
Launch
Launching and evolving the platform
We launched with two products, Parachute Life and Parachute Critical Illness.
A consistent yet flexible checkout experience across product sites
Since the platform had to accommodate more insurance products in the future, I led the UX agency to design a shared UX for the transactional screens while keeping the flow adaptable. The number of steps varied depending on the product and the customer's choices, such as the addition of a spousal questionnaire and e-signature steps when spousal coverage was available and selected.
Member portal
A fully self-serve member portal
While the Parachute platform offered a self-serve digital experience for consumers to buy insurance, its Member Portal lacked the functionality for policyholders to initiate a claim online.
I was one of two UX designers behind the transition of this key functionality from a paper-based process to a digital self-serve offering. As Director, UX and Marketing, I co-designed the high-fidelity mockups, directed the agency through wireframing, and led two copywriters to deliver the project on a tight timeline.
This project was significant because it enhanced customers' most critical interaction with their insurer, saved users time and the need to call customer service and supported the brand's promise of a fully digital and simple experience. It also marked the first time we produced the Figma designs in-house.
A claims flow to accommodate all product-type variations within one portal
Since customers could manage multiple insurance products in the member portal, we wanted to provide a simple and consistent flow, while accounting for the product-specific requirements for submitting a claim. We had also been tasked with following the claims flow that existed in the US version of the Parachute member portal, so existing development work could be leveraged.
During discovery, I conducted whiteboarding sessions with our insurance claims SMEs and quickly learned that because Canadian products included options for spouse and child coverage, additional complexity existed in initiating a claim.
Not only did users need a way to indicate who the claim was for, since child coverage applied to all children, those with children born or adopted after purchasing the policy would need to add them to the account before submitting a claim. To avoid deviating from the US flow, we added this functionality within the 'Claim type' step, using an 'Add a child' link to expand the fields for edge-case users as needed.
Streamlining design work in-house
I wrote the UX requirements for the agency producing the wireframes, provided a user flow, field details for each screen, and the identified use cases. After lengthy rounds of feedback and iterations with the agency, we faced a short window before the development sprint.
In order to meet our deadline, I proposed bringing the Figma design work in-house. I designed the mobile views, while my colleague focused on the desktop version.
What we learned
By identifying opportunities to streamline the design work, the team was better able to iterate and incorporate stakeholder feedback without external delays or issues at hand-off.
This project strengthened the team's design proficiency and marked an important step in reducing our dependence on external agencies.
Retrospective
Results
A complex and conversion-focused ecosystem
By 2022, I had grown into the role of Director, UX and Marketing. I was doing the design work in-house and helping evolve Parachute into a full end-to-end insurance marketplace.
We had expanded our offerings from 2 to 5 insurance products, supporting both personal and commercial lines.
The design challenge we faced with every new product integration or member portal feature was to absorb the complexity without compromising the experience Parachute was known for: fast, simple, and fully self-serve.
5x industry average conversions
For customers used to insurance sites that provided online quotes but required dealing with brokers, lengthy forms, and medical tests to finalize a purchase, Parachute was a breath of fresh air.
We digitized the entire insurance-buying process through a carefully orchestrated user journey, from co-branded marketing emails into private product storefronts, where customers could go from instant quote to active coverage in under 10 minutes.
Largely due to the simple, cohesive, and low-friction experience, the platform achieved 5x the industry average in conversions.
Taira joined our Parachute B2C project in its early days and wore many hats as we laid the foundation for a global project and built our pilot websites. Her guidance on all things UX and SEO, attention to detail, and open collaboration style were instrumental to our successes.
