Why
We learned that surprise bill was one of the biggest pain points for insurees.
What
Provided information regarding the procedure and coverage for each of the procedures in real-time.
Outcome
It backfired. Instead of decreasing frustration, it made them feel more anxious and stressed out.
Why
We learned that people didn’t want to spend a second of their day thinking about insurance. But we also learned that having high FHL correlates with better health outcomes.
What
We embedded insurance terms with a box of cookies to help improve insurees financial health literacy without directly educating them.
Outcome
They hated it. They didn’t want anything from their insurance company. They were skeptical of how they were going to be charged for this later.
Why
We learned that not everyone ignored insurance. They learned to pay attention to insurance after they’d already been bitten by the system.
What
We were playing around with the idea of utilizing technology like Virtual Reality to narratively transport them to a time when they’d have a negative experience with insurance. But then...this trigger pod came to life...in the form of COVID 19. We leveraged this situation using a survey to understand people’s behavior and attitude towards insurance during a time like this.
Outcome
Even in a dire situation, peopl still didn’t seek out insurance.
Why
We learned that surprise bill was one of the biggest pain points for insurees.
What
Provided information regarding the procedure and coverage for each of the procedures in real-time.
Outcome
It backfired. Instead of decreasing frustration, it made them feel more anxious and stressed out.
Why
We learned that people didn’t want to spend a second of their day thinking about insurance. But we also learned that having high FHL correlates with better health outcomes.
What
We embedded insurance terms with a box of cookies to help improve insurees financial health literacy without directly educating them.
Outcome
They hated it. They didn’t want anything from their insurance company. They were skeptical of how they were going to be charged for this later.
Why
We learned that not everyone ignored insurance. They learned to pay attention to insurance after they’d already been bitten by the system.
What
We were playing around with the idea of utilizing technology like Virtual Reality to narratively transport them to a time when they’d have a negative experience with insurance. But then...this trigger pod came to life...in the form of COVID 19. We leveraged this situation using a survey to understand people’s behavior and attitude towards insurance during a time like this.
Outcome
Even in a dire situation, peopl still didn’t seek out insurance.
It pointed to something bigger...something deeper...something fundamental. Or more like, lack of something fundamental. With a lack of this, any good built on top of it was bound to fail.
It was TRUST.
People fundamentally didn’t trust insurance.
Following our first two rounds of evaluative prototypes and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we realized the reason many of our ideas were failing was a lack of trust between insurees and the insurance system. If insurees lack this essential relationship with Highmark, then any solution we provide will be met with a level of skepticism. Will this truly help me? Does insurance really have my best interests in mind? We have to overcome this obstacle in order to effectively connect with and guide members toward less stress and more life.
To unpack this, our team conducted various activities to understand what type of company Highmark is and the key factors that lead to trust.
Similar Entities that we already Trust
As a team, we each conducted a Five Whys activity, choosing something specific in each of these three areas and listing five reasons why we trust each of them so that we could dig beneath the surface and uncover the true needs.
Key Building Blocks of Trust
Relevance
Transparency
Convenience
Control
Empowerment
Familiarity
Others Trust You
Up until this point, our research had been focused on the insurance domain in general. But in order to create storyboards and prototypes surrounding trust, we first had to get a better grasp on who exactly we were designing for. We dug into Highmark’s existing work and highlighted four personas, which we synthesized into two groups, to understand their needs and blocks around health insurance. To respect the confidentiality of Highmark’s research, we’ll touch on these personas only at our synthesized level.
Younger Insurees
1. Generally healthy
2. New to interacting with insurance
3. Work dominates their schedules
- Time intensive careers
- Jobs they need to keep for the paychecks
4. Insurance doesn’t need to be their primary focus right now
Experienced Insurees
1. Starting to experience more serious health events
2. Have interacted with insurance for years, but might be on a new plan
3. Still feel overwhelmed by the insurance system
4. Past experiences impact trust
01 insight
Employer appreciate transparency
Employer perception of insurance benefits from an increased transparency into the system
02 insight
for insurees with more experience, trust can be built through a more consistent, transparent process
With the the building blocks of trust in mind, we proceeded to ideate on how we can address those needs in the context of increasing trust in insurance companies. We decided on six ideas and sketched storyboards to test for feedback.
01 insight
Health data collection, especially by insurance, breaches trust.
02 insight
Insurance should not infringe on healthcare provider’s side.
03 insight
Transparency into cost is helpful, but not directly related to trust.
04 insight
Insurees like transparency not into cost, but into what other people have.
05 insight
Insurees wants the option to voice concerns when needed.
