Evolving Allstate's Commercial Auto Claims

Project Overview:

As the lead UX strategist, I spearheaded the initiative to redefine Allstate’s commercial auto claims experience, positioning the company at the forefront of customer-centric insurance solutions. My approach centered on developing an innovative claims process specifically tailored to Allstate’s commercial auto customers, aiming to provide a significant competitive advantage.

The Challenge:

The primary challenge was addressing the unique demands of commercial customers and navigating divergent perspectives between personal lines and commercial needs. Additionally, I needed to propose a groundbreaking concept – the Pre-Claim Tool or Claims Advisor – designed to revolutionize the insurance industry and secure leadership approval to proceed with the project.

Goals:

  • Securing Leadership Buy-In: Convince ABI leadership, including C-suite executives, of the critical need for a specialized solution, ensuring they gave the green light to proceed with the project.
  • Technical Hurdles: Integrating innovative features like the Pre-Claim tool posed technical complexities

My Contributions:

  • Strategic Leadership: Provided strategic leadership in UX throughout the design discovery phase, ensuring alignment with business objectives
  • Team Leadership: Led interdisciplinary teams in the conceptualization and execution of the commercial auto claims experience
  • Workshops: Facilitated design thinking workshops to foster creativity and innovation within the team
  • Wireframe Development: Developed wireframes to translate strategic objectives into tangible design concepts
  • Research: Conducted extensive research to inform strategic decisions, synthesizing findings into actionable insights
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Engaged with Allstate's UX community and leadership to socialize and iterate on design concepts
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked closely with product management, engineering, and marketing teams to ensure cohesive implementation
  • Feedback Integration: Integrated feedback from users, stakeholders, and team members to continuously refine the design

Our Users

Customer Interviews: Insights into Small Business Owners:

Small business owners (SBOs) are not just business entities; they're individuals with heightened expectations and emotional needs, compounded by the complexity and stakes of commercial ventures.

Additional Insights from Quick Survey (Sample size 40 Small Business Owners):

  • Pre-Claims Tool Interest: 92.5% of SBOs (37 out of 40) expressed interest in a pre-claims tool
  • Fast Turnaround: 90% of small business owners want a fast turnaround on their claim
  • Settlement Accuracy: 80% of customers state that the original settlement is not accurate
  • Premium Concerns: 85% of customers are concerned about premium increases after filing
  • Customer Satisfaction: 75% of SBOs are dissatisfied with the current claims process
  • Preferred Communication: 70% of SBOs prefer digital communication over phone calls for claims updates
  • Policy Understanding: 65% of SBOs find their current insurance policy documentation confusing and hard to understand

Business Owners:

  • Revenue Impact: With vehicles crucial for revenue generation, any downtime translates directly into financial losses for SBOs
  • Tactical Considerations: SBOs often lack personal attachment to vehicles or property, viewing them primarily as tools for business operations
  • Protection Concerns: Constant worry about liability underscores every decision, emphasizing the need for comprehensive coverage
  • Collaboration: There is a strong willingness for SBO’s to put in the effort to have a claim resolved.
  • Brand Representation: Vehicles serve as mobile billboards, reflecting the SBO's personal brand and reputation. Ensuring alignment between their vehicle and business identity is imperative

Discovery

Guiding the User-Centric Exploration:

Using various design thinking methodologies, I led collaborative sessions with all stakeholders to ensure a comprehensive, user-centric understanding of the commercial auto claims experience.

  • Competitive Analysis: Conducted competitive analysis to understand market dynamics
  • Stakeholder Identification: Identified key stakeholders
  • User Journey: Created a comprehensive overview of the user flow
  • Target Audience: Defined the target audience and their pain points
  • Persona Development: Created detailed personas to represent different user types
  • Use Cases: Analyzed both common and edge cases to ensure comprehensive solutions

Methods Used:

  • Applied: Affinity Clustering, Sketching, Rose-Thorn-Bud, Round Robin, and Voting techniques.

Stakeholders Involved:

  • Engaged with stakeholders: from Product, Underwriting, Commercial Operations, Data Science, Behavioral Science, Engineering, Claims, Customer Service Representatives, Legal, and marketing to ensure complete alignment

Outcome:

  • Main Functionality and Use Cases: Defined main functionality and use cases, including identification of edge cases to ensure comprehensive coverage
  • Business Requirements: Established clear business requirements to guide development and implementation
  • UX Vision and Direction: Clarified vision and direction for the product, ensuring alignment with stakeholder expectations
  • Stakeholder Consensus: Achieved consensus and alignment among stakeholders, fostering a shared understanding of project goals and objectives

Defined the UX Guiding Principles

Understanding the Customer

Small business owners (SBOs) are not just business entities; they're individuals with heightened expectations and emotional needs, compounded by the complexity and stakes of commercial ventures. Trust and confidence become paramount in serving their unique requirements.

Supporting Trust Through Principles

  • Speed: Striving for clarity and simplicity in every interaction, fostering transparency to build a foundation of trust
  • Information Tranparency: Recognizing and addressing the individuality of each SBO, understanding their distinct needs and preferences
  • Reassurance: Providing ongoing assistance and guidance throughout their journey, ensuring they feel valued and supported at every step
  • Trust: Striving for clarity and simplicity in every interaction, fostering transparency to build a foundation of trust

Developing Wireframes: Bringing Concepts to Life

Crafting User-Centric Solutions: The Wireframing Journey

Synthesizing sketches from our workshops, I transformed conceptual ideas into tangible wireframes. Careful attention was paid to capturing business requirements and functionalities derived from these sessions

During Ideation:

  • Strategic Blueprints: My wireframes served as strategic blueprints for the entire user journey
  • Workshop Insights: Each wireframe reflected the insights gathered from collaborative workshops
  • Functionality and Expectations: Ensured seamless alignment between functionality and user expectations

Testing with Real Users

Skill Highlights

After multiple internal iterations with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), it was time to test the prototypes with real users. I targeted and vetted small business owners for this phase. As the UX lead, I formed research hypotheses, addressing the challenge of balancing transparency and risk for Allstate within platform limitations.

Research Objectives
Outcome
Digital Claims Experience: How comfortable are customers with an end-to-end fully digitally enabled claims experience, and do they see value in it?
83% of SBOs expressed a strong preference for a seamless, fully digital claims experience, highlighting its value in improving user convenience and efficiency.
Main Concerns: What are the main concerns of the SBOs during the commercial claims process?
All participants identified speed as the critical factor, with delays in processing seen as negatively impacting their business operations and presenting potential legal challenges.
Claims Assistance Value: Are customers seeing value in assistance to assess whether to file a claim?
83% of participants found significant value in the claims assistance tool, appreciating its ability to provide clarity and guidance, especially for those less familiar with the claims process.
Trust in Claims Assistance: Would customers trust an insurance company to help them make a claim filing decision?
25% expressed hesitation in reporting incidents due to concerns over data usage, indicating a need for increased transparency and trust in the claims assistance process.
Timely Claim Resolution: How important is a timely claim resolution, and how much effort are SBOs willing to put into it?
92% of participants were willing to invest effort into ensuring a timely resolution, understanding that it directly impacts the speed and effectiveness of the claims process.
Claim Resolution Expectations: What are customer expectations about claim resolution and payout?
67% of users perceived the claims process as potentially slow and inaccurate, indicating a fear of needing to advocate strongly for a fair settlement.

Feedback - Claims Advisor

“I would only see the benefit in claims advisor if it would not haunt me later.”-SBO

“Nobody else does this, this is really cool!”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

Feedback - Transact

“I would only see the benefit in claims advisor if it would not haunt me later.”-SBO

“Nobody else does this, this is really cool!”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

Feedback - Settlement

“I would only see the benefit in claims advisor if it would not haunt me later.”-SBO

“Nobody else does this, this is really cool!”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

“It would be like talking to a trusted mechanic who gives you advice.”-SBO

Visual Design:

Shaping Product Development with Research:

As the lead designer, I oversaw the  research and strategic goals into high-fidelity artifacts that align with Allstate’s branding and integrate seamlessly with existing claims initiatives. These designs reflect a commitment to user-centricity and excellence.

Summary

Achievements and Impact

The project introduced a strategic tool powered by machine learning and Allstate’s Data Science department, D3, to empower agents with data-driven decision-making capabilities. By consolidating fragmented reports and automating the sales planning process, the tool enabled agents to independently strategize, project outcomes, and make informed investment decisions to drive business growth.

Key Accomplishments:

  • Decreased Application Entry Time: Reduced from 30 minutes to 10 minutes (based on 2 commercial vehicles, 2 drivers, and 2 trailers)
  • Reduced Questions: Decreased from 70 to 33 questions
  • Real-Time Processing: Reduced processing time from 3 days to instant real-time processing
  • Multi-Platform Design: Fully designed for both desktop and mobile experiences

20

SBO Interviews

8

Adjuster Interviews

5

Workshops

1

Prototype

Outcome and Next Steps

Next Steps

Define and Refine MVP: Collaborate with technology partners and claims adjusters to fine-tune the prototype, ensuring it balances technical feasibility with an exceptional user experience

Explore Pre-Claim Feature: Continue researching and developing the Pre-Claim feature to address technical challenges for potential future integration

Stakeholder and Customer Feedback: Engage stakeholders and conduct further user testing to validate the MVP and ensure alignment with business and customer needs

Develop Strategic Roadmap: Create a roadmap for future enhancements, including the eventual integration of the Pre-Claim feature and further data-driven innovations

Challenges to Overcome

The Pre-Claim tool was well-received but deemed too complex for the initial MVP. However, its potential to enhance data collection and drive future innovation was recognized. As a result, a simplified Pre-Claim experience was greenlit, focusing on capturing basic incident information and providing users with a recommendation.

The Good

The prototype resonated strongly with ABI’s Executive leadership, business partners, and Allstate’s internal UX community. Stakeholders not only empathized with the user experience but also recognized the strategic business value of transforming the claims process. The need to enhance and evolve this experience was clearly understood, aligning both user-centric goals and business objectives.

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