So we’ve finally made it to the part of the series where we are talking about insurance quotes. In the last post, we whined a bit; both about how hard it is to design quotes, and how hard they are for a customer. So many new labels, new questions, but also new products - maybe coverages they’ve never heard of - and today, we’re talking about those unfamiliar coverage names.
One of the first things I wanted to do when designing the quote at Vouch, was rename the 10 individual, business insurance coverages we sold.
I thought the names were stupid, outdated, patriarchal, and likely to confuse customers about what was actually being covered. Names like “Directors & Officers,” “Errors & Omissions,” and “Employment Practices Liability” (not to be confused with Employment Benefits Liability) and my personal favorite — “Hired and Non-owned Auto.” Hired and Non-owned Auto. I even started using “Fiduciary,” from Fiduciary Coverage, as a replacement for one of my favorite cuss words.
In some cases, insurance is something you are required to get. Who requires it? That’s different industry by industry, but Vouch sold business insurance to startups, and those startups were given “insurance requirements” by landlords and the venture capital firms investing in their business.
Those insurance requirements were part of the contracts they signed, and those contracts - like all other contracts including insurance policies themselves - were written in the Shakespearian times for Christian lawyers and underwriters concerned with “key men,” “peril,” and “acts of God.”
That’s kind of an exaggeration, but only kind of.
And insurance requirements listed those outdated coverage names plain as day.
As a designer or product person, the last thing you want to give an overwhelmed customer is another translation layer. Another thing to learn. Another “this means that” moment. If they show up at your product’s door with a confusing shopping list in hand, your job is to have exactly what’s on that shopping list so they feel confident they are getting the right thing and can shop more effectively on their own.
So we kept those stupid coverage names, and surrounded them with as much context and clarity as we could.
My advice to product people & designers; if insurance is required in your insurance industry of choice (think health insurance, car insurance, business insurance, etc.), let the requirements be your naming guide;
Only updates the coverage names if…
it’s intuitive to the customer why the name probably changed, like the update Vouch made from “Key Man” to “Key Person” coverage.
Update the coverage name if it doesn’t match what’s commonly listed in insurance requirements, but they’re the same thing. For example, if you are selling “Business Personal Property” coverage, but a landlord’s contract almost always says “Business Property” and the coverages are the same - drop the word “Personal.”
Update the names of any “subcoverages” (remember those from the policy deep dive?) that aren’t listed on the aforementioned “insurance requirements” shopping list. That’s a safe place to innovate, and name products in a way that is attractive and interesting to your customer.
Update the names of any coverages or policies that break a consistent naming scheme that will be easier for your customer to understand.
For example, at one point Vouch was selling “Crime” instead of “Crime Coverage” which always made me chuckle. (You guys wanna buy some crime?) Half of our policies were named blah blah “Policy,” and the other half were called blah blah “Package.” Shit happens. Simplify and stay consistent for the sake of your customer.
In conclusion, if you are designing a product in an industry with middle-men or actually in insurance, think twice before dramatically updating the conventional naming of your products. The presence of a middle-man in your market means customer education is low, human translation is already desperately needed, and your intentions might backfire.
And if you’re buying insurance and confused about the names, sorry, and welcome to the club.
Stay tuned - tomorrow’s post is a doozy,
Carrie
On to Part 10!
Words on Quotes That Make Me Feel Dumb (and What They Mean)
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March 8, 2024
Before we dive in today, I’d like to remind everyone of our ELI5 definition of insurance;”Insurance is how you take a precious thing you own, and protect yourself from the cost of fixing it, should it be damaged in a particularly rare and expensive way.”
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