Using video modules to increase understanding of insurance policies

Background

Kaus has been in the insurance business for over 30 years. With the rise of the internet and personal devices, Kaus wants to start selling policies online to target a younger demographic: 25-35 year-olds.

High-Level Design Objective: Design a responsive e-commerce website that is pleasing to use and that allows customers to purchase a policy online.

Duration: 8 weeks

The problem area

Auto insurance can be very complicated with its large number of coverages and limits. Although insurers explain these terms to consumers on their site, most 25-35 year-olds are not fully understanding the information being presented. These customers are then purchasing policies without grasping what the policy covers.

This heavily impacts their experience when, later on, they find that their policy does not cover or only covers a percentage of their accident.

The frustration and anger at having paid for insurance (and thinking they were being protected) leads to 23% customers switching insurance carriers every year.

The challenge then became: ‘How might we present Kaus’s policy terms in a way that makes it easier for our target audience to understand what the policy covers?

Diving deeper into the problem

During interviews, participants admitted that they bought their policies without fully understanding what they covered. They read the definitions for most coverages but did not understand them, which frustrated them. They then completed a quick Google search or double-checked with family members and friends to make sure the basics were covered before purchasing.

They admitted to wanting to get the process completed and out of the way.

Testing competitor sites

I watched two of the participants navigate two competitor sites to learn more about their frustrations when reading policy terms and explanations.

Almost all the information online was communicated through text, separated in a granular way (by policy coverages) and very concise. The term language used was regular everyday language. Although many steps were taken to simplify the information and eliminate insurance jargon, participants were still not fully understanding how they would be covered in case of an accident.

New ways of presenting the information

I then started brainstorming new ways in which we could present the information.

I began looking at how our target audience consumes information, and at what sites they enjoy and use frequently when they want to learn new subjects. Highly-visited sites included LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and Youtube, which all use short videos that break down complex concepts into easy-to-follow and engaging narratives.

Research I conducted also showed that using multimedia resources, like videos along with text, results in higher understanding because it presents the information in the different modalities in which people learn: visual, auditory and verbal. (Mayer, 766)

I then chose to implement similar short videos (along with text) as our solution, so we could help our audience better understand their policy.

Defining our user and flow

Based on our user’s goals, frustrations and behaviors, I created a persona that I could refer to throughout the project.

Based on competitor analysis and card sorting exercises, I created a site map and a user flow to provide a skeleton for our site and define how it will function.

Charting an user flow helped me design an experience that was easy and functional for our users when buying an auto policy online.

Ideation

Once I had an idea of the pages that had to be designed, I started sketching out explorations of the key screens needed when purchasing an auto policy, as well as what the screen with video lessons would look like.

Visual design

For our brand and visual design, I kept with Kaus’s values of trust and reliability, while adding a modern, fresh feel to their brand with vibrant colors and real photography showing happy families.

The solution: Video modules

I then focused on developing the video modules screen.

Once an user clicks to learn more information about a coverage, an overlay appears. It contains specific video lessons based on the most common and researched questions. The lessons provide users with a deeper understanding of what the coverage covers, how the limits work and how they’re able to make changes to their policy.

Users can watch the videos in order, or skip to certain topics they want to learn about. For more experienced users who just want to read the information, we included text below the video that contains answers to the same questions.

Prototyping

Next came the development of the prototype, which would help us test our new site with users to gain feedback.

User testing

User testing was then conducted with 5 participants.

Our hypothesis was that if we showed the information about coverages and limits in a way that our target audience consumes regularly and enjoys (video lessons), this will lead to higher understanding and retention.

Because of time constraints, we were unable to make the video lessons fully functional. If further time allowed for it, the videos would then be developed to test retention and understanding level.

Iteration and next steps

Changes were prioritized and made based on results from user testing.

If further time allowed for it, the video lessons would be fully developed and we would go through more rounds of testing to confirm that the video lessons increase retention and understanding of how policy terms work.