User experience: Why it matters to your insurance business

When Alison Fox — Nude Solutions’ Partner Training and Change Management Specialist —started in insurance it was just a day job. 

“I thought I’d get a secure office job,” she says. “Fast forward 18 years later and I’m still in the industry!” 

Alison is originally from Northamptonshire in the United Kingdom. While she was in the UK, she worked for a large brokerage as a broker and office manager – she handled everything from auditing to training. An acquisition by her brokerage sparked her interest and passion for user experience – how efficiently someone interacts with a product or service.  

“Acquisitions go beyond a transaction. You’re acquiring a new culture – that includes everything from different processes to shared understandings about how things are done,” she says. “I needed to learn what user experience meant for our new team. Being in a brokerage, a big part of this meant finding a common ground for the user experience we offered customers.” 

That common ground meant her brokerage evaluating their own user experience. 

“We made changes and seeing the impact of those changes, and everyone coming together to make them a reality, was rewarding,” she explains.  

A website is just one piece of the user experience puzzle 

Between COVID-19 and consumer demand for online insurance services, user experience is top-of-mind for many brokerages and insurers. A first reaction can often be investing in a new website or technology.  

Before making these investments, Alison recommends insurance businesses take a step back to evaluate the user experience they provide employees and customers.   

“Your user experience for brokers and customer should complement each other,” she says. “For example, you could have a modern website where it’s easy to get a quote. However, if the user experience for brokers to manage those quotes is complex, the time and resources spent on that website won’t likely pay off.” 

Alison also says the user experience insurance businesses offer reflects their reliability.  

“We know the biggest investments people make are their home and cars. When they don’t have a good user experience — online or in person — when they’re insuring these assets, that trust is errored,” she explains. “That’s why it’s so important to take a step back and look at user experience from the lens of your employees and customers.” 

Tips for putting the user experience puzzle together 

There are many ways to evaluate your user experience. Alison suggested a few ideas: 

Think about your organizational goals: when it comes to those goals, consider how the user experience you currently offer (for employees and customers) is or isn’t supporting those goals. What can you change or re-evaluate? 

Get feedback from your stakeholders: this includes your employees and customers. Ask what is and isn’t working (or if they have any suggestions) when it comes to your business. This could be facilitated with surveys.   

Evaluate your goals: based on what you hear from your stakeholders, think about what you need to focus on or change. 

Be willing to try new things: this is where you learn as a business. The main thing is that you have a focus on what you’re doing and stakeholder support. 

Do a debrief after any changes: if you do make a change(s) to your user experience, take time with your employees to assess any learnings. Oftentimes, this is where new ideas come about.

User experience and the Nude Solutions platform 

Based on Alison’s experience, she says insurance technology is often complex. She thinks the user experience offered by Nude Solutions platform addresses common pain points. 

“Brokers spend a lot of time on service-related activities, such as emailing policy documents,” she explains. “This is just one example but with the automation we offer, customers get their policy documents in real-time, right after they’ve purchased a policy. It offers a positive user experience for both the broker and customer.”  

Alison also points to how the platform was built by brokers for brokers. 

“It’s built to take more administrative work off of the broker so they can focus on their customer,” she says. “Also, as a company, we’re constantly re-evaluating our platform to see what we can improve. We want to improve the insurance experience for brokers and customers as a whole; I’m excited to be part of it!” 

Want to learn more about what we do? 

Whether you’re curious about the Nude Solutions platform or how we’re helping the insurance industry, email us at nudestart@nudesolutions.com.