Eagleview - Onsite
Enabling insurance teams to close hail damage claims without leaving the office.
My role
Sole UX Designer
Team
1 Product Manager
6 Engineers
1 VP of Product
1 VP of Sales
3 Subject Mater Experts
Timeframe
6 months
⚠️ Under A non-disclosure agreement
Some of the details in this case study may be vague or recreated to protect intellectual property.
Context
Eagleview is an aerial photography company with a stronghold in the roof measurement business. We fly small airplanes all over the US and Canada capturing billions of photographs that can be used to measure roof and siding of a structure (among other things). We have customers in construction, government, insurance, solar and utilities.
On a day like any other, I walked past a conference room when I heard some whispers. It sounded like something secret was happening. So after too much lurking, I poked my head in and made my way into the conversation. It was me and five others: an engineering lead, a product manager, a data analyst, product marketing manager and sales lead for insurance.
There was a new RFP from Allstate Insurance and our leadership team thought we had a pretty good play for it. Allstate was trying to update antiquated workflows by replacing people climbing on roofs with drone imagery after hail events.
Business Opportunity
In 2017, 10.7 million U.S. properties were affected by a damaging hail event, resulting in losses of more than $13 billion for Insurance companies.
Our opportunity was an $135 million RFP with Allstate insurance.
Research
Understanding the User Journey
My first step was to understand the people. I interviewed subject matter experts and adjusters to get the full picture of their job and all its intricacies. Discovery was constant and ran parallel to design–experimenting and improving weekly.
To align the team on our on our plan, I put together a user journey to see if I was understanding everything correctly and to see where we could make changes/updates.
User problems/needs:
There’s often no cell service when visiting a home.
Photos of no damage are just as important! To prove non-damage from that storm. “I take more photo’s when there is less damage.”
For each home, first verify its hail damage with 100% certainty, then start to figure out what you need to replace.
If the roof pitch is over 6/12, they hire a ladder assist professional to do that roof (twice the cost as in-house adjusters).
Everything is documented in a map like the one pictured here and in the form of notes, detailing out every side of every structure. They call these scope notes. “Scope notes tell the story. Photos prove the story.”
Our Strengths
We already provide insurance companies with roof and siding measurements reports which they need for each home.
We have a great reputation for producing accurate measurements from photographs.
We have a strong network of partners.
A Day in The Life
I put together “A Day in the Life” story’s that helped me build empathy for the insurance team and to understand what users would need to close a hail damage claim without visiting the home. I used those story’s to write technical specifications with my product manager.
Ideate
There were a lot of ideas and potential software we could build, but one that would be critical tot he success of this project. We needed to build a web application that was a substitute for adjusters the site visit, allowing them to instead review each claim remotely - as if they are there.
Referencing my recently finished user persona’s hanging right behind my desk, I began drawing out ideas for a web app.
Test
Round One
Once I had synthesized all the parts into a simple solution, it was time test it on actual users. I turned these low fidelity wireframes into a prototype, and conducted usability testing with three insurance adjusters.
Priority
Software usability
Is there enough data to close a hail damage claim remotely?
Integration into all the existing channels
Concerns about receiving data from a 3rd party drone pilot
Behind the Scenes 🎬
This first round of testing turned out to be a major bonus to the project, but it received significant push back early-on.
Some old-school Balsamiq prototypes 👆
These worked awesome, correcting high-level assumptions about image organization and improving workflow steps that I would’ve been more difficult to learn with higher-fidelity prototypes.
Testing round 2
There was a second round of testing as I raised the fidelity.
These were conducted with working software on-site with adjusters.
I emphasized the round one testing because it was more critical to the success of this project.
Have you ever seen Twister?
Independent adjusters are kind like Tornado chasers, making their living following hail storms around the Texas pan handle in March–and quite often doing their work in hotel rooms.
The First Hail Storm
Working with the VP of Product and VP of Sales, I helped make a lot of decisions that weren’t directly software related.
For example, we had to decide what homes to test this on in March. The homes in the center of the storm would have the most damage and when there is a lot of damage, the claim is easier. The site visit becomes more of a documentation of the damage than an assessment with the homeowner receiving payment for a full loss 98 percent of the time.
The image here shows a typical storm path visualization. We decided to test this project at homes that experienced hail at a size of two inches or greater.
The Web Application
A web application that looks a lot like a Adobe Lightroom or Adobe bridge.
The images from this home are displayed in a long scroll on the left column, the selected image is outlined in yellow in the middle and a top-down diagram of the property on the right side.
The claims adjuster can perform a virtual walk-a-round of the property, just as they previously did in person.
The images are organized by structure and elevation (roof or walls); perfect for understanding the full claim while remote.
Final Designs
Annotations
The claims adjuster can annotate each image, add notes and the number of strikes in an area from this page.
With that functionality they were able to close the hail damage claims exactly as they have in the past except without visiting the property.
Full Access to Measurements
With one click, remote adjusters can locate measurements reports of the entire property and turn repair/replace decisions into specific numbers for the homeowner.
Improving
UI and AI
I continued to refine the UI after the initial push for the RFP had past.
Machine learning algorithms were added to automatically mark hail strikes and differentiate from other anomalies. I had worked with the AI team we acquired, but this feature was implemented after I left the company.
Mobile
I made mobile workflows for our second push to help our field adjusters with scheduling and streamlined mobile upload.
We Won the RFP!
I combined imagery from multiple sources, including fixed wing aircraft and drones, to enable insurance adjusters to inspect properties without leaving the office. This led to a $135m RFP win for Eagleview.
Allstates measured success in three ways– safer, cheaper, faster.
Policy holders received payments for losses, on average, 3 days faster (30-40 percent) with our new solution.
Allstate increased adjuster efficiency by 50-60 percent, saving in $ billions in annual employee costs.
Saving lives too! There were 20 percent less deaths from adjusters falling off roofs the following year (2019) and a 45 percent reduction in injury.
This collaboration led to Allstate Winning the Novarica Impact Award in 2018.
I was grateful that my 1st project was a large, high stakes one. I learned a lot about working in teams and leading large projects and keeping users at the center of my work.