Redesigning funeral insurance digital onboarding

Hollard's life insurance division needed to replace its underperforming funeral insurance platform. A complex application process was causing high abandonment and declining policy purchases, which meant significant lost premium revenue.

Hollard is the largest independent, privately owned insurer in South Africa. The goal was to let a diverse South African audience buy a funeral policy online on their own, with empathy, accessibility and simplicity, while still meeting strict business and compliance rules.

• Reduce abandonment across the quote-and-buy process
• Increase completed purchases and conversion
• Improve customer satisfaction and trust
• Lower operational costs through better self-service

Screens from the previous version.

I was the lead designer on the new quote-and-buy application, embedded in a team of a PM, a BA and seven developers, and working across business, actuaries, marketing, sales, customer service, legal and compliance.

• Diagnosis. I audited the existing journey to pinpoint where it failed at UX and UI level, and listened to customer calls to see how it really worked.
• Alignment. I interviewed internal teams and users, and aligned the design with Hollard's business goals and design strategy alongside managers, developers, analysts, actuaries and marketing.
• Design ownership. I led the redesign end to end, from discovery to the final handover.
• System thinking. I worked with the central design team to fold the new patterns into Hollard's design system, so they could be reused beyond this product.

From ambiguity to clarity: understanding the business, the users and the competition.

Testing the existing application, call recordings and support tickets surfaced the critical frustrations and barriers to completion.

Quote first

A personalised quote up front, so people see the price and know what to expect before committing to a long application.

A guided four-step application

Main member details, beneficiaries, payment and confirmation, with progress tracking throughout.

Easier beneficiary capture

Progressive disclosure shows only the essential fields first, with optional fields collapsed by default, to reduce cognitive load.

We worked in scrum, using a discover, define, create and deliver model. I owned the design handover so developers could build without guesswork: Sketch files, InVision prototypes, Zeplin specs, a complete style guide and UI kit, responsive specs for every breakpoint, and guidance on micro-interactions and animation.

The redesigned journey launched on web and kiosk. Beyond the headline growth in users, sales and conversion, it was faster and clearer to complete.

Clearer guidance in the journey also reduced support calls to the call centre.

• Align early. Stakeholder alignment at the start prevents costly redesigns later.
• Earn trust. Insurance needs extra care around transparency, and showing the quote early helped.
• Plain language works. Clear explanations noticeably improve form completion.
• Progressive disclosure is very effective at reducing cognitive load in complex forms.

Opportunities identified for the next phase: saving incomplete applications, real-time chat help, linking onboarding to the policy management portal, and personalised product recommendations.