Insurance Plan Shopping experience Optimization

 
 

Objective

Transform the way people shop for insurance plans on the website of Medical Mutual to decrease the confusion about picking the right plan and minimize disenrollment and plan changes.

Challenge

Medical insurance is a complicated sector with detailed regulations in the U.S. Most customers are not familiar with these rules and just want to enroll in the right plan.

While often health insurance is provided by the employer, there are instances when individuals need to purchase insurance for themselves (i.e. after being laid off from work, leaving their parents’ insurance at 26 years old, or after turning 65). There are insurance plans designed only for young people - individual insurance. There are also plans for older adults - Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage. Many people find this confusing, especially since chronic illnesses can prequalify you for certain insurance coverage. These nuances are difficult to understand and easily navigate to the right plan.

Furthermore, people say that they pick health plans based on quality. In reality, however, customers said that it was very difficult for them to understand what is included in insurance plans and make a rational decision. Customers said they often have to rely on price points to make their final decision.

Idea

In order to effectively guide customers through government regulations and plan types, we proposed developing a Plan Finder tool that would guide a customer through a series of questions to arrive at a list of plans that match all the criteria selected.

After observing the shopping behavior, we also noticed that plan names confused customers. For example, Medical Mutual had a plan called MedMutua HMO 4000 Bronze. The plan name provided little value to customers and appeared like a code. It was clear that the name of the plan had to describe what was included in coverage so that customers could easily understand what they were buying.

Execution

We developed a Plan Finder tool that took a customer through a series of quick questions to help them find a plan that suited their needs best. The questions were broken down into the following categories:

  • Who am I? - Focused on demographic information, such as age, sex, life events, etc.

  • What do I have? - Collects information on health conditions, chronic illnesses, prescribed medication, etc.

  • What do I want? - Provides options to choose more coverage or spend less money

  • What product offers it? - Offers a list of plans that meet the customer’s criteria

After the first prototype, the Plan Finder tool was optimized with features that were important to the target audience, including:

  • Simple and short questions to avoid confusion

  • Captivating, bold design that stood out on the webpage

  • A progress bar displaying where the user is in the process

  • Feature to change answers to previous questions or save progress to complete later

During the focus group, we found that customers value simplicity and do not want to choose from many insurance plan options. However, they do want the experience of having made their own choice. After completing the Plan Finder, customers were offered a short list of insurance plans to make their final selection.

In addition, we advised changing the names of insurance plans to be more descriptive and intuitive for customers:

  • Include levels of coverage based on persona development - saver, balanced, confident.

  • Spell out additional services are included - vision, dental, telehealth, preventive, etc.

  • Rely on scannability to find the right plan fast - An example of an updated plan name would look like “MM Confident + Adult Dental + Fitness”

  • Introduce simple prompts at checkout - call out the most popular plans, good for infrequent medical needs, best for chronic conditions, or plans that have just been introduced this year to help customers with their final selections.