Innovation strategy
The goal
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Skyscanner chose travel insurance as a solution to boost traveller confidence. As a new entrant to the market, we collaborated with an insurance partner, XCover, to develop a custom product.
As principal designer of New Products, I drove the innovation process and product discovery. Remarkably, we were the first brand to launch a COVID-19 insurance in the UK - in just 6 months!
Launching the UK’s first COVID-19 Travel Insurance
Insights
1/3 of British travellers go travelling without any insurance
Most travellers are unaware of the risks of travelling without insurance
Users don’t want to spend time buying insurance - it’s the least fun part!
Complex language is the biggest barrier to buying insurance
Experience principles
Make insurance easy and transparent
Minimise friction
Make it easy to buy multiple products
Don’t overload with choice
Goal: Help bookers
feel more confident travelling during the COVID-19 pandemic
Design process
1. Choosing the bundles
We had the option of selling many types of cover in “bundles”. I ran a maxdiff survey with Product Marketing, to understand how travellers saw each policy’s relative importance. This helped determine our insurance bundles so that our partner XCover could source them.
2. Making the langugage human
In 30 hours of user interviews, we learnt that language is the biggest barrier to buying insurance. (The average reading age in the UK is just 9 years old). I worked with a talented UX Copywriter to refine insurance jargon into bullets which could highlight the strongest benefits in a quick glance.
3. Optimising the attach flow
We came up with a frictionless “add product” flow which our legal team were happy with. User testing videos were critical in persuading the Checkout team that another CTA in the checkout was important. Once we added this – insurance sales increased by +27%.
4. Enhanced insurance recommendations
Through research, we learnt that not all bundles were important for every kind of trip - a domestic trip probably won’t require health insurance. So we defined a smart recommendations vision that would intelligently suggest the right product, based on the type of trip being booked - giving travellers the best level of protection. This solution also reduced choice overload for travellers.
5,000 travellers feeling more confident every month
Launched in 6 months
My impact
After launching version 2 with an “intelligent recommendations” vision, our insurance attach rate doubled to 2.7%.
At the end of the product’s lifecycle, it had contributed an average £57k revenue per month, or £648k annually - and had helped 60,000 travellers feel more confident to travel during the pandemic.