LIFE INSURANCE
COVER CALCULATOR
UX & D
The Challenge
Life insurance is an area not easy to understand, with a lot of misconceptions and most people don’t really know how much cover they need to cover them and their loved ones.
The purpose of the cover calculator is to provide our customers an engaging, fast and easy to use tool to provide them with an estimate of how much life insurance cover they may need.
My Role
As the UX/UI Designer I had the opportunity to work on the cover calculator feature from very early stages. Collaborating with the user researcher on the user interview preparation.
Core team:
- Product owner
- UX researcher
- Copywriter
- Frontend developer
- Business analyst
- Legal advisor
- 3rd party business stakeholders
- 3rd party frontend developer
The Process
There was already some work done around the cover finder/cover calculator tools, but we were ready to take it to the next level. Initial kick off session with the PO and UX researcher to gather the existing information, identify the customer’s problem, how do we want to approach it and how much time ideally we need.
Identified CUSTOMER CONCERNS when it comes to Life insurance:
- Customers don’t understand the fundamentals of how life insurance works or how to calculate the cover accurately
- Information input for this is perceived like another “application” journey and not tailored to their circumstances
- Journey feels long-winded and would be good seeing the cover amount as they go
- Customers don’t understand this is only to provide a guide price based on their circumstances and plans for the future but can be adjusted by them or they can even ignore it
- Some elements seem like guesswork as they are questions about a future they hope they’d be part of (and able to decide then)
- This feels like a cold, clinical and unrelatable process that can benefit from a ‘human’ touch and real case studies
Some EXPLORATORY CONCEPTS that came out a brainstorm session with the PO and UX researcher:
- Provide pre-set ”standard” options for the most common customer personas (e.g. family of x, couple, millennial with dependents other than children, etc), these standards are to present a cover amount quickly but should be adjustable should the customer decide.
- Provide an introduction to explain how it works to set the scene clearly, how long it’d take and what information may be required.
- Provide introduction to explain how life insurance works and how this fits in the overall life insurance Q&B process.
- Leave all data capture areas as optional so the customer has control of what they want to add/remove. Provide progress tracking.
- Use an engaging and supporting tone of voice to alleviate anxiety generated by the topic.
- Use real case studies.
- Consider surfacing different coverage options to suit different covers.
- Provide users with a real time quote as they answer the question, so they gain understanding of the impact of their answers on the quote
- Allow users to provide exact figures or a range
Some user testing feedback:
- Users found the ranges too broad
- They wanted to consistently know how each question determined their cover amount
- Generally struggled to answer questions about their future
- Wanted a breakdown on how the cover amount could be distributed
- Wanted to continue getting a quote after using the CC
- Wanted a review of previous answers
- Needed to ask partner to confirm estimates of some figures e.g. bills
- Did not know the meaning of several terms such as ‘Equity’ and ‘Legacy’
- Typically, only read the first sentence of explanatory paragraphs
Online banking channel (when users are logged into their Barclays account)
Barclays mobile banking app designs
REFLEXIONS & TAKEAWAYS
- People are often not really informed about Life insurance
- People want to see how their decisions affect their cover amount realtime
- People don’t read