Company
Joyn Insurance
Year
2023 - 2024
Type of Work
Product Ideation, User research, Product Management
At Joyn, expert underwriters (UWs) are responsible for assessing risks, adjusting premiums, and managing quotes. This work can be time-consuming and tedious, as evaluating risks involves analyzing hundreds of data points across multiple locations.
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The existing layout in Spark made it difficult for underwriters to digest information and compare and edit data effectively. They needed a more compact, side-by-side view of contextual data, along with the ability to quickly modify details and efficiently send quotes.
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While designing these features, I ran into multiple challenges: navigating around technical trade-offs and having difficulty conducting user research. Ultimately, I was able to successfully design and ship the Quote Preview, Rating Summary, and Send Quote features within Spark.
01
User Research
Understanding the process & problem
Before designing anything, I started conducting user research to better understand the process and problem. I began conducting one-on-one interviews with UWs, distributed surveys, and organized weekly group discussions to give every UW the chance to express their pain-points.
CHALLENGE: Lack of feedback
For hours every week, I failed to motivate UWs to engage. Many were too pre-occupied quoting submissions and didn’t see the immediate value in contributing feedback. After many silent meetings, unanswered messages, and resistance to provide thoughtful feedback, my team and I realized it was time to pivot our approach.
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SOLUTION: Shadowing
The most effective way to gather insights was through screen shadowing —a minimally disruptive method for the UW. I shadowed every underwriter, observing their screen as they worked for 3 hours, followed by a 30-minute Q&A session. This process took 3 months and my findings are below.
02
Requirements
After my user research, it was obvious that the UWs wanted to replicate Excel as a Spark feature. Along with the ability to send a quote from Spark, they wanted a spreadsheet-based tool for data input and management.
03
Challenges
CHALLENGE: Technical Trade-offs
After presenting the idea to the engineering team, we quickly realized that it was not feasible. The fast editing, live updates, and dynamic capabilities of Excel were not compatible with the way our data was structured.
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The load times would be too long.
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Automatic saving per cell was not possible.
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We could not edit multiple cells simultaneously.
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The data was dynamic and interdependent on other parts of the system, so live updates were too complicated.​
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DSEIGN SOLUTION: Splitting up the feature
Given these constraints, I had to adapt the design and ultimately split the concept into two features: the Rating Summary and the Quote Preview.
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After sharing drafts and prototypes with the UW team, we agreed to the compromise and stayed within technical limitations.
04
Final Designs
Designs were finalized in collaboration with the users, then presented to the engineering team. I created tickets for the front-end team and tested the PRs in partnership with the QA team before the feature was deployed. Full screen the Figma Prototype below to interact with the hotspots.
06
Impact
The implementation of 3 key features has significantly boosted our underwriting efficiency. As the company faced unprecedented product volume, the graphs below demonstrate that our underwriters were able to maintain a steady quoting time despite the team size remaining relatively unchanged. Even as we handled more products and generated more premium, Joyn's commitment to delivering quick quote turnarounds remained strong.
100% Increase in Quoted Products
Volume of products quoted in 2024 soared from 700 (Jan) to 1,400 (May) per month
6-7
Business Days
Launch dates of the features coincide with the consistent quoting speed (stable green line)
2X
Productivity
UWs quoted twice as much without compromising turnaround time, showing the features' scalability.
150% Increase in
Quoted Premium
Starting in 2024, we were quoting $8M monthly and jumped to nearly $20M in May, showing volume & complexity of submissions.
40%+ of Products Quoted Within 36 Hours
Underwriters were delivering quotes just as fast, meeting the company's target SLA even as premium skyrocketed.