Designing a better claims experience, providing people with the ability to submit, track and manage their claims 24/7
A leading British insurance company set out to modernize their traditional motor claims process. The vision was to build a centralized digital claims hub that would enable customers to submit, track, and manage claims 24/7.
This wasn’t just about digitization; it was about building a business case for investment. To win C-suite backing, the solution needed to demonstrate improved efficiency, reduced call-handler dependency, and a better customer experience that would drive adoption.
As the design lead within an external, cross-functional team of strategists, product owners, researchers and multiple engineers, I was responsible for shaping the design vision, user experience principles, and MVP prototypes forming the backbone of the internal business case.
Outcomes/Business Impact
• 50% online adoption among eligible claimants (since launch), cutting dependency on high-cost call centres.
• 28% reduction in manual re-keying by claims handlers, lowering operational inefficiency in claims-handling costs.
• Design principles, prototypes, and templates were adopted as a strategic roadmap, enabling stakeholders to secure internal buy-in and commit budget and resources to expand the digital claims program
• The project became a proof point that investing in design upfront reduces cost-to-serve and improves customer loyalty, making the case for further design investment across the organization.
Approach & Leadership
•Customer Insights: Conducted surveys and interviews to understand pain points — confusion, lack of visibility, and anxiety were key blockers.
• CX Blueprint and high level MVP UX: Led co-creation sessions with stakeholders to map the end-to-end claims process, aligning on simplification opportunities and identifying where design could cut costs.
• Prototyping MVP: Developed wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes that illustrated a streamlined digital flow. The experience and interactions were designed to feel like a calm, guided conversation — making a stressful process feel manageable.
• Helped prioritize user driven feature sets for strategic roadmap releases 1 & 2, based on companies technological capabilities
• Stakeholder Buy-In: Presented experience principles and prototypes to C-level leaders, shifting the conversation from “technology feasibility” to “business impact enabled by design.”
Here you are seeing the design output that underpins this story.
• Motor claims were managed largely offline, requiring expensive call-handler intervention.
• The process was complex, inconsistent, and stressful for customers, often requiring multiple follow-ups.
• Stakeholders knew change was needed but lacked a shared understanding of the customer journey, leading to hesitation in committing budget.
• Success depended on proving not just usability, but return on investment (ROI) through measurable efficiency gains.
To first validate the idea of a simplifying the motor claims process, a range of customer surveys and interviews were undertaken to better understand this problem space. Below demonstrate key pain points and learnings from the findings. These insights were then used to establish our strategic direction and 'must-have' focus for the new digital claim's hub (1st and 2nd launches).
With the challenge "How can we simplify the motor claims process experience to better enable end customers and call handlers", we entered into a co-creation process with the client's insurance team to define the product strategy and vision. We also created a CX Blueprint map where we ideated solutions across the entire customer experience.
To simplify complexity, we determined to first focus on the simplest car accident scenario group; the group of customers typically at fault, with no other passengers and no other drivers involved, ultimately being the primary person responsible for the car incident. In discussions, I led the wider group through mapping the customer journey to help them better understand how user needs shift, as customers are first triggered in an incident, report an incident, then manage the incident claim, and to align to the overall flow of the experience.
Constant alignment and shared perspectives & updates to the business, across design, tech and business teams
Before progressing into wireframes and high fidelity designs, I prioritized early stakeholder alignment through creating user flows based on our scenario. This was during the same period of mapping out the primary customer journey, with cross-functional teams. I directed the creations and edits of process maps and flow diagrams, which helped the entire team to understand all the steps in the process and what user information needed to be collected when and where.
This holistic approach ensured we gained alignment to a simplified customer experience, and provided us with a clear direction as we moved through the design process in alignment with engineering.
Building on the customer insights (Interviews & Surveys) and internal stakeholder interviews, we evolved the product features to deliver a tangible human-centered experience. From the beginning of the onboarding process, we wanted the people to feel as if they were having a conversation with the tech hub and telling it their incident story by answering simple and engaging questions or instructions that made them feel at ease and in control while registering their claim.
Wireframes were created to finalize the flow and process based on a new structuring and re-grouping of questions. As one of the client's first large complex projects, I guided them through the process of first creating black and white wireframes, we then created a placeholder look and feel to achieve a separate design for the client that could be used purely for their internal buy-in.
After finalizing the user flow, tech stack implications and process as a larger team, I then created high fidelity design prototypes communicating the vision, empowering internal- buy-in.
*Full prototype available on request
The project deliverable involved a condense handover document capturing engineering and coding suggestions, design prototypes, design experience principles, stakeholder interviews, market research and more.
Excerpt of Experience Design Principles to client, from final hand over documentation
This project demonstrated how human-centered design directly delivers business ROI: reducing operational costs, unlocking budget for digital transformation, and shifting senior leaders’ perception of design from “aesthetic polish” to a strategic driver of profitability and efficiency.
