Online coverage customization for RBC Auto Insurance in Ontario

Background


Mary is a small business owner and a mother of three.
She is leasing a car and wants to buy auto insurance for it. She finds insurance complicated and has relied on agents in the past. However, that has cost her time and money, and she does not know the full story of her policy. Her children often encourage her to use digital platforms for quick service.
Robin is a 35-year-old tech-savvy IT professional working for a consultancy firm. He wants to buy auto insurance for his new car and got an online quote from RBC Auto insurance. However, he is frustrated that he has to call the insurer to customize and buy his policy. It is time-consuming, and he lacks control over the process and the policy.
Illustrations courtesy: Storyset by Freepik

Problem

When buying auto insurance, choosing one that meets your needs and your budget is important. Unfortunately, most insurance buyers get confused by the insurance jargon and don't understand their insurance options well. In addition, some don't know what they need. As a result, buying policies online seemed complicated and they relied on agents to assist with the process.

RBC Auto Insurance spends considerable time and money on onboarding policies offline. Ontarians have been reluctant to purchase policies online, but post-pandemic digitalization has grown. Therefore, this is an opportunity for RBC to digitalize sales and offer lower premiums to customers as they can now reduce overhead charges and commissions by selling policies online. 
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Our goal was to make it easier for buyers to understand and customize their auto coverages online for a convenient purchase.

My role & process‍

I worked alongside my UX manager, a content writer, a team of front-end and back-end engineers, and a legal team as the UX/UI designer.
Design reviews were conducted with the stakeholders.

Diagram: UX process

Problem statement

Defining success‍

  1. Educate policyholders: Familiarize the customers with the coverages to make an informed decision.
    Measure of success: Customers can easily customize the policy online.
  2. Customer control: They should be able to select and edit coverages based on their own needs and convenient time.
    Measure of success: Less number of customer calls requesting changes to their policy.
  3. Transparency: Customers understand the coverage clauses. E.g., the ins and outs of the policy.
    Measure of success: No discrepancies reported.
  4. Quick assistance: Easily reach out to our team of dedicated agents available to answer your questions through chat or call.
    Measure of success: Online customization is fast.‍
  5. Accurate quotes: We guide our customers to fetch factual and up-to-date information, assessed by our AI-driven quote engines to provide exceptionally accurate quotes.
    Measure of success: Trusted advisor and see an increase in the online purchase.
  6. Human touch: Content should not be tone-deaf and robotic but should feel more personalized. Add helpful tips to make the decision-making process easy.
    Measure of success: Less assistance on call/chat.

Customer's current journey‍

Let's take a look at the steps to buying insurance and where customization can come into play.

Diagram: Journey Map

Value proposition‍

Research‍

From Guidewire's database, we extracted a list of coverages that fall mainly into two categories:
- Coverages applied to all vehicles in Ontario
- Coverages applied to per vehicle in Ontario

As you can see from the screenshot below, the coverage options are unstructured, and the page lacks organization.

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Diagram: Screenshot of auto coverages in Guidewire

We started by interviewing the underwriters and sales team to learn more about the coverages and how the underwriting rules play out. Here is the list of questions we posted to understand their approach when customizing the coverages with the customers:

  1. What are the types and levels of coverages?
  2. Is there any order that gives the customers a better understanding of the coverages?
  3. How do you help the customers to pick the right coverages?
  4. How often the customers seek your recommendation in choosing the right limits?
  5. Which are the popular selections?
  6. How do the customers compare the prices?
  7. What are the common questions raised by customers?
  8. What do customers feel about customizing their policy and what is their expectations?

We also studied our competitors to identify barriers and derive insights and potential points of emulation from competitive experiences.

Analyzing the data, we inferred that customers expect insurers to offer fast, adaptable, and up-to-date customization. To add value, we must assist customers in anticipating and eliminating risks rather than just paying compensation when things go wrong.

Exploration‍

After gathering data, we sketched low-fidelity wireframes on paper. We tested different layouts and finally decided on Layout 2, which we found is skimmable and displays coverages at the summary level initially, with the ability to drill into the details and customize options as needed. Development was made for a responsive website.

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Diagram: Wireframes exploring the coverage customization page

In the meantime, I worked with our content writer and legal team to thoughtfully analyze and simplify the coverages' copy to correspond to the design. 

Converging on a design‍

After finalizing Layout 2, we focused on each component on the page to make it discoverable and easy to understand. Below is the design with our list of design considerations.

Diagram: Coverage customization

Evaluation and Findings‍

One-on-one, remote user testing was undertaken with 17 Ontarians. Participants used laptop/desktop/mobiles to interact with desktop or mobile versions of the website page:‍

  • A goal-based scenario was provided to drive exploration
  • Think-aloud protocol was used by participants during exploration

Problem

4/5 participants felt that the layout and design made them feel compelled to review each coverage section.

Solution

We simplified the layout to create only two main categories - Included and Additional coverages. Also, the card designs have created a visual demarcation between different sections.

Problem

4/5 participants felt that there was an ample amount of scrolling required and the layout did not allow them to easily get a sense of was included / not included in their policy as they were customizing their coverage options.

Solution

We removed segmented controls as the exposed options increased the page length, and the customers had to read through the default options to find out what was included/ not included. On the other hand, checked boxes were easily perceivable as included and increased readability.

Problem

3/5 participants enquired about the discounts they qualify for.

Solution

Discounts played a significant role in making the purchase decision. Thus, adding discounts to the list of coverages gives a holistic view of the policy.

Problem

3/5 participants tried to return to the initial recommendations after making several changes.

Solution

Added a dynamic Reset button to reset to default selections.

Problem

3/5 participants missed the bottom section containing a list of documents to keep handy before buying as they were engrossed in the coverages.

Solution

Designed the list as a reminder that pops up on clicking 'Buy now' and proceeding.

Problem

On mobile screens, it took some time for users to scroll back to the top of the page.

Solution

Saw the opportunity to add a 'Jump to top' button.

Final design

We leveraged our Design systems that enabled shorter timelines and produced consistent design output across the journey. It also complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA standards to increase usability and reach a larger audience by requiring:

  • To pass the contrast ratio at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text.
  • Add levels of text hierarchy
  • Accessible focus indicators to show change in states
  • To help users to recognize success, diagnose warnings and recover from errors
Desktop Version
Mobile Version

Currently, in the development stage, a demo of coverage customization with auto-updating price is shown below.‍

Next Steps‍

  • Improve the live chat user experience with fast response. It’s also an opportunity to uncover usability issues.
  • Design for scalability of insuring up to 10 vehicles in one policy
  • Work in collaboration with the marketing team to highlight the USPs of the product. For example, customize your policy in just a few minutes, buy online discount.
  • More testings to uncover opportunities to improve

My closing thoughts: Document every little change and why it was made. This can save a lot of time when you circle back on an issue in a collaborative environment.