Eliminating Customer Attrition in Micro Insurance

989% increase in premium growth for micro insurance through design research and strategy

CLIENT

Leapfrog Investments

YEAR

2019

role

User Experience Research

Service Design

Product Management

Product Design

THE PROBLEM

THE SOLUTION

THE APPROACH

SEE DETAILED ANALYSIS

Each month there are over 12,000 active premium cancellations. While the data analytics were clear, it required a more intentional user research project to figure out why customers cancel their premiums after only one month of being enrolled on their plan

As the Research Lead, it did not take long to note that the customer profile of this company was changing from white colour workers to predominantly blue colour workers and so were their expectations and mental models.

High cancellations were exaceberted by the fact that their new customer segments were not well versed in insurance lingo and also needed to account for every single penny - anything short of that warranted a cancellation.

What is the current insurance funnel process like?

As a result...

Why its important in the industry as a potential opportunity?

the solution

Agent Calculators and Strips

Eliminate errors and provide transparency

A state of the art mobile premium calculator app to support both agents and customers and avoid errors and encourage transparent pricing

New Forms with simplified Copy

Simplified forms with highlighted insights

The inner flap of the proposal form cover (which the customer keeps) now highlights key knowledge gaps that customers tend to have. Sales agents will be instructed to cover these key points for QA purposes.

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New Forms with simplified Copy

Simplified forms with highlighted insights

The inner flap of the proposal form cover (which the customer keeps) now highlights key knowledge gaps that customers tend to have. Sales agents will be instructed to cover these key points for QA purposes.

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Customer eXperience Management Portal

As the famous saying goes, you measure and monitor what is important, and in this case, Customer eXperience. The CX score is entirely based on customer perceptions and distinct from operational metrics related to service excellence.It is measured every month, with the first measurement being taken for January 2019.

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Research

Secondary Research

Understanding the current company service offerings, and exploring the breadth of challenges embedded in the system

Secondary Research Finding 1

The Economic Viability Paradox

Micro insurance faces an impossible triangle that explains why customer experience consistently suffers. Low premiums required for affordability demand high volume for profitability, but high volume requires simplified processes to manage operational costs, and simplified processes sacrifice accuracy and customer understanding. The business model itself creates the conditions for calculation errors and customer confusion.

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Secondary Research Finding 2

The Calculation Knowledge Gap

Traditional insurance uses sophisticated actuarial models with dozens of variables, but micro insurance adaptations create a dangerous knowledge void. In simplifying complex actuarial models for micro insurance, agents lost understanding of why premiums are calculated as they are, the ability to explain pricing logic to customers, and confidence in manual calculations. What they gained were simplified formulas they don't understand and pressure to sell without being able to explain. Agents can neither calculate accurately nor justify pricing to customers, creating mistrust and errors.

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Secondary Research Finding 3

Commission-Driven Behavioral Distortions

Industry commission structures systematically incentivize behaviors that harm customer experience. The standard structure provides volume bonuses that reward quantity over quality and retention penalties that are poorly communicated or enforced. This creates behavioral consequences where new sales are prioritized over customer retention, agents only share details that facilitate immediate sales, and quota pressure leads to incomplete customer education. The incentive system rewards behaviors that create the very problems customers experience.

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Primary Research
Understanding the users’s mental models, goals & expectations

primary Research Finding 1

The journey of a customer from Awareness to Claims was not streamlined and clear between departments. This created a massive backlog and frustrated customers in the process.

Held 7 workshops with over 20 internal stakeholders. Defined and mapped 5 phases of the retail customer journey. Conducted interviews with 12 customers to synthesize the most important values at each phase of the journey

primary Research Finding 2

Mapping out both physical and non-physical artefacts that customers needed, showed lengthy duplicate documentation required at various phases

because departments failed to align on a singular process, customers usually will have to fill duplicate paper work, most of which were complicated to understand given the growing blue-color demographic.

*CX Journey Mapping Operational process flows*

The landscape and profile of the average customer was changing to include more blue color workers.

A very interesting insight revealed the changing landscape of the companies customers. For years, the average customer profile for this company had slowly been changing from white color educated people to blue colour workers who were interested insurance but did not have the depth of knowledge nor the time to keep up with insurance policies. Their only requirement was accountability for every single penny which miLife was not very adept at.

We realised the customer landscape was changing from white-color workers to blue color workers

synthesize

FIRST PRINCIPLE INSIGHT

In financial services for vulnerable populations, trust and understanding aren't separate goals—they're the same goal.

STRATEGIC DESIGN PRINCIPLES

After conducting domain research and primary user interviews, I needed to synthesize what I learned into a coherent understanding of the problem space and identify the most impactful opportunities for intervention.

ideate & design

Service blueprint + brainstorming

58 pain points and opportunities were identified and prioritized, based on their estimated impact and effort to resolve.

Early design - Calculator Strips

Given that 70% of insurance agents never went into the field with smart phones, it made sense to explore non-digital solutions as well. I designed and distributed these calculator strips. They were so easy and intuitive, even the most challenged clients could use them. They quickly became great conversation starters and promotional tools.

Focus Group & Co-design sessions

Focus groups were held to validate concepts and investigate the of the miCash and miKids products.

miCash Insights:

1. Lower income customers are unlikely to patronise it

Higher income customers expressed interest, but did notf eel it was worth it at lower sums assured (GHS 5,000)

miKids Insights:

Getting no money back at the end of the policy felt like a bad “investment” to participants.
Several suggested an increase to the 5% cashback

Focus Group & Co-design sessions

Focus groups were held to validate concepts and investigate the of the miCash and miKids products.

miCash Insights:

1. Lower income customers are unlikely to patronise it

Higher income customers expressed interest, but did notf eel it was worth it at lower sums assured (GHS 5,000)

miKids Insights:

Getting no money back at the end of the policy felt like a bad “investment” to participants.
Several suggested an increase to the 5% cashback

Communication Strategy & Form Redesign

The terms and conditions for each policy have been redesigned to be easier to read and reference.

Early design - Agent Commission App

While I was not directly responsible for designing and building the initial UI screens, the research work from prior engagements informed the look and feel. I was also responsible for all Usability testing with over 30 riders which informed subsequent iterations.

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Early design - Agent Commission App

While I was not directly responsible for designing and building the initial UI screens, the research work from prior engagements informed the look and feel. I was also responsible for all Usability testing with over 30 riders which informed subsequent iterations.

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test & iterate

Validate scenarios
putting solutions in front of actual users and identify major problems with prototypes

Validate scenarios to put our solutions in front of actual users and identify major problem with the prototype

Usability Testing - USSD Features

While I was not directly responsible for designing and building the initial UI screens, the research work from prior engagements informed the look and feel. I was also responsible for all Usability testing with over 30 riders which informed subsequent iterations

Calculator Strips Testing and Iteration

Speed and accuracy are the primary concerns with premium calculation. We tested the performance of the strips against the current premium tables that agents have been using.‣ Agents were both faster and more accurate while using the strips

‣ Tested with 8 active agents

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