Life Insurance Quote Process (2019)

Task

State Farm is straddling two significantly diverse market segments at the moment: users who prefer to work with an agent to handle their insurance/banking needs, and users who prefer self service.

Self service has become an expectation of most B2C companies, and insurance is no different. As one of the leading insurance providers, State Farm is faced with the absolute necessity to provide their customers and potential customers with self service options, as well as still maintain the company’s partnership with its thousands of licensed insurance agents across the country.

Life insurance occupies a unique position in this space, as getting an approval requires doctor examinations, medical history, and other information that isn’t necessarily readily available to the customer. It also legally requires more questions than auto or home/renters insurance.

Historically, all life insurance applications have been handled by State Farm agents. So how can they bridge the gap between self-service and agent, as well as provide an experience that isn’t overwhelming or confusing?

Solution

Approaching this problem, my initial thoughts were based on providing the user with small, manageable chunks of the process to complete step-by-step. Presenting the user with a long, scrolling screen of form-fields is overwhelming, and doesn’t offer the conversational tone that I was looking to achieve.

Based on that, I worked with my team to build an experience that would mimic a low-pressure conversation that a potential customer might have with an agent about applying for life insurance. The questions were presented in a way that was easily digestible, and then allowed the user to adjust their answers to the questions once they had completed the necessary steps to get their quote.