Co-op was one of the first insurers to offer telematic insurance to young drivers. Our partnership with Co-op has spanned over ten years, and we’ve helped them build an insurance platform that’s backed by specific and extensive UX design for insurance, alongside a full-scale redesign of their Young Driver insurance quote engine.

Our work with Co-op improved the overall user experience of the platform, as well as bringing the look and feel in line with the updated visual identity. The platform was rebuilt to modernise it and bring it in line with their other services.

Co-op were going through a period of change. They had a digital transformation underway, a brand refresh in progress, and a quote engine that hadn’t kept up. So, this was an opportunity to take their Young Driver platform and capitalise on growth and future development.

The original insurance platform was over a decade old, and had accumulated bugs and technical debt over time. We identified a gap in mobile conversion rates and outdated user journeys that had been outpaced by competing insurance platforms.

So, this was an opportunity to rebuild and restructure to bring users a slicker experience.

Our findings were clear, giving us a clarified goal to aim for. Usability testing for web applications is key to ensuring the longterm success of the product. The usability research process we underwent highlighted a few key findings:

Mobile conversion gap

During our analytics review, we found that mobile traffic to the platform accounted for around 10% more than on desktop, but the conversion rates were much lower. This identified a clear opportunity – the mobile user experience needed to be improved to enable quicker and easier conversions.

Question architecture

Usability tests revealed that question structures throughout the process were putting off potential customers. One example of this was ‘Licence Held Since’, which required a full date DD/MM/YYYY to validate against. Asking for such detailed information increased cognitive load for the user, so we simplified. Instead of asking for the full date, we asked for the month and year, or simply the number of years held.

Number and labelling

We tested different types of navigation, which showed numbered steps being used throughout the user journey. We tested this against a simpler labelling approach. The results showed that users actually preferred numbered and labelled steps to quickly identify where they were in their quote journey.

Competitor platforms

Research into competing insurer platforms quickly showed us one thing: competitors had raised the bar significantly, leaving Co-op’s platform feeling dated by comparison. We needed to not only improve the user experience, but bring it into a more modern and familiar look and feel.

The UX research process and analysis informed everything when we designed, from UX to UI to accessibility. We designed lo-fi wireframes in Figma to determine page structures, question delivery, and navigation approach. It was at this stage that our analysis of labelling and numbering came into play. We provided the user with both, for example ‘1. Your Car’. This clearly tells the user exactly what step they’re on, and sets the expectation for the page, and the user.

The Co-op design system was adopted across the design, bringing consistency and cohesion across all the touchpoints for the user. From their initial engagement on the website through to finalising their policy, everything looks and feels like Co-op.

Before we moved through to development, we used Figma prototyping to validate our decisions against direct user feedback, highlighting any further gaps and opportunities.

Once the user had taken out their policy, they needed somewhere to track their telematics, coverage, and policy. We designed and built a comprehensive digital dashboard. Designed and styled around their target market and customer base, the dashboard brings intuitive information and tracking metrics directly to the users in a manageable way.

We connected the dashboard directly with the telematics API to bring the data directly to the user. From acceleration and braking tracking to cornering, the dashboard gives users a score for each metric in a clear and accessible way. Delivering this data clearly gives users an insight into how to improve their driving.

Users can also manage their policy directly from the dashboard, including document uploads like V5 logbooks and proof of no claims discount.

The new Co-op insurance quoting system not only brought users a more seamless user experience, but a more cohesive visual experience too. Research-backed design decisions have improved and simplified user journeys throughout, giving users a much clearer way of quoting for their insurance. By researching UX design for insurance platforms, we were able to give customers an unmatched user experience from their first encounter with the platform through to managing their policy online.