How I simplified claims with 70% faster process and double user…

Full case study: https://www.mureezz.com/cs/claims-process

My contribution

Product design User research User Interviews Prototyping

The team

1 × Product designer 1 × Project manager 2 × Developers 1 × QA Engineer

Year

2024

SafetyWing is a health and travel insurance provider designed for digital nomads and remote workers. It offers simple, flexible coverage to over 100,000 customers worldwide, helping them stay protected as they live and work across the globe.

Imagine Sarah, a freelance web developer from Canada, currently working from a small café in Bali. She's just received medical treatment for a severe case of food poisoning and needs to file an insurance claim. As she sits down with her laptop, feeling weak and frustrated, she's confronted with SafetyWing's current claims process. The form seems endless, asking for information she's not sure how to provide. The hospital gave her a handwritten receipt in Indonesian, and she's not certain if it contains all the required information. As she tries to upload the document, she realizes the file is too large and she needs to find a way to compress it. Sarah sighs, closes her laptop, and decides to deal with it later – if she remembers.

This scenario encapsulates the core issues with the current claims process:

🧾 Unecessary documentation Requesting non-critical documents burdens users and claims processors.

🗳️ Rigid upload process Inflexible system doesn't accommodate varied medical document formats across countries.

😶‍🌫️ Cognitive overload Complex forms with numerous required fields overwhelm users, especially when dealing with medical stress or unfamiliar healthcare systems abroad.

📵 Mobile unfriendliness Process not optimized for mobile, a significant barrier for digital nomad users.

The redesigned claims process introduces a streamlined, user-friendly interface, significantly improving document submission and processing efficiency. Key features include a QR code for easy mobile uploads and AI-powered document reading.The combined impact of these enhancements was substantial.

Reduction in claims processing time

Decrease in support tickets

Increase in user satisfaction

Our primary objective is to transform the claims process from a source of frustration into a seamless, user-friendly experience that aligns with the digital nomad lifestyle our customers embody. We aim to achieve:

📝 Form simplification Simplify claims form Strip away complexity, focus on essential information for efficient processing.

⏱️ Faster claims Shorten overall process Significantly reduce time and effort required from users.

🧠 Stress reduction Minimize cognitive load Support claimants during stressful times, reduce bureaucratic hurdles.

📊 Data streamlining Eliminate unnecessary requests Ask only for information truly needed to adjudicate claims.

🚀 Processing boost Reduce on-hold claims Decrease claims on hold from 30% to a more manageable 5-7%.

😊 User delight Improve user satisfaction Aim for higher NPS scores and positive feedback, boosting loyalty.

To guide our design process, we developed three user personas that represent key segments of our digital nomad audience.

We conducted in-depth interviews with 24 SafetyWing customers who had recently gone through the claims process. These conversations provided invaluable insights into the real-world challenges our users face. A recurring theme was the difficulty of obtaining and uploading specific documents while traveling and the lack of clarity around what documents were actually necessary.

I was in Thailand when I needed to file a claim. The hospital gave me a hand-written receipt in Thai. I had no idea if this would be accepted or how to properly document it.

Adrian, Digital nomad

I felt like I was playing a guessing game. I ended up uploading everything I could think of, just to be safe.

Katarina, Remote worker

We organized the information from our user interviews into groups. This helped us spot important topics and decide what to improve first.

The diagram revealed four main clusters of user concerns.

📄 Document confusion Users struggle with understanding what documents are needed and how to obtain them in various international contexts.

📤 Upload difficulties The current upload process is seen as cumbersome, especially on mobile devices.

❓ Lack of guidance Users feel unsure about the status of their claim and what steps they need to take.

⏳ Time pressure The lengthy process and holds on claims cause stress, especially for travelers on the move.

To determine which solutions to focus on, we developed a prioritization matrix. This tool helped us evaluate potential features and improvements based on their potential impact and feasibility.

We made a chart with two sides: how much each idea would help users, and how easy it would be to make. This showed us which ideas we could do quickly that would help a lot, and which bigger projects might take longer but could really improve things.

Two main ideas stood out:

Adding a QR code for uploading from phones. This would be easy to do and help users a lot.

Creating a smart system to read documents. This would be harder to make but could really improve things in the future.

Based on our research and prioritization, we've developed two key solutions to address the pain points in our claims process:

First solution that was implemented was adding a QR Code for Mobile upload as we needed more mobile friendly solution. When a user opens a claim form, they are presented with the QR code wich opens a secure, mobile optimized upload inerface where users can capture images of their documents and upload them directly to their claim.

Our mobile-first solution streamlined document submission by eliminating manual transfers, leveraging phone cameras for high-quality images, and aligning with our users' on-the-go needs.

Technical Implementation:

We used a WebSocket connection to ensure real-time synchronization between mobile and desktop interfaces.

The QR code will contain an encrypted, time-limited token to maintain security.

We'll implement progressive image loading to ensure fast performance even on slower connections.

The new system worked better. It made claims 21% faster and users happier. These results were good, but we wanted to do even better so we decided to work on a more challenging solution that was more time consuming for our team, but could give even better results.

Our second solution is a more ambitious, long-term project aimed at revolutionizing the claims process through AI, keeping everything from the first solution and upgrading it.

This AI-powered system will automatically extract relevant information from uploaded documents, dramatically reducing the manual input required from users and streamlining the entire claims process.

🤖 AI Analysis: Our machine learning model analyzes the documents, identifying key information such as treatment dates, diagnoses and procedures, cost and currency and healthcare provider details.

📊 Extracting information: The system extracts this information and automatically populates the relevant fields in the claim form.

👀 Review: Users review the pre-filled form, make any necessary adjustments, and confirm the information's accuracy.

🎯 Confidence Scoring: For each extracted piece of information, the AI provides a confidence score. Low-confidence items are flagged for manual review.

📈 Continuous Learning: The system learns from user corrections and adjustments, continuously improving its accuracy over time.

Our new AI document reading system will make filing claims much faster and easier. We expect it to cut the time users spend on claims from 45 minutes to just 12 minutes. This big improvement should make our customers much happier with our service. We'll likely see far fewer support calls about document issues, and more customers staying with us longer.

Our team will spend less time sorting through paperwork, freeing them up to help customers in other ways. All these changes will help SafetyWing stand out in the travel insurance world, potentially bringing in more customers and strengthening our position in the market.