Market Position
#1 private life insurance company in India
2 Mil policy holders
$3 Bil in yearly revenue
strength
17,000+ employees
400+ branches across India
High claim settlement ratio of 99.13%
Known for financial stability & customer trust
TATA AIA is a leading insurance company in India. They offer various insurance products like life, savings, wealth, protection, retirement to individuals and families. These require robust support features that are governed by strict legal and marketing compliance.
In 2021, the pandemic forced offices to close, disrupting offline workflows. The company’s dated online portal with poor user experience, struggled to meet new demands.
To address this, we revamped the customer portal into a modern, intuitive platform that simplified policy servicing for over 2 million customers and worked seamlessly across all devices.
The primary goal was to create an easy-to-use digital infrastructure that enhanced process efficiency and met the growing need for digital solutions.
My Role
Owned the product design for over 10 features from discovery to handoff,
including the new customer dashboard design.
Established design system
Conducted secondary research and drove user testing.
Managed communications and expectations
Team
Pranav Shirke - Product owner, VP Digital Initiatives, TATA AIA
Gayatri Nathan - Executive VP, Head of Customer Operations
Priyadarshan Bhardwaj - Product Manager
Asim Sayed - Lead UX Designer
Vaibhav Sharma - UX Designer
Dishant Shah - UX Designer
Terrell Gonsalves - Illustrator
IT Vendor
Business intelligence and analytics vendor
Timeline
6 months
Jan 2021 → July 2021
outcome
⚡ Increase in self-service adoption
⚡ Reduce customer service calls
⚡ Increase in monthly website traffic
⚡ Increase in customer satisfaction score
How might we create a unified digital platform that simplifies access to insurance
policy services, reduces process turn-around time and increases customer visits
online, leading to increased customer loyalty and upselling opportunities.
👩🦳 For the user it meant
Purchase and renew a policy online
Improved services access like profile update, add nominee, etc.
Get updates on claim processing, investment growth, renewal notice, etc.
A modern web and mobile experience
🏦 For the business it meant
Operational efficiency due to reduced manual customer servicing capability requirement
Increased brand affinity and trust
More upsell opportunities
Better customer profiling using advanced analytics
Research Highlights
insights
Due to contract restrictions, we were unable to conduct primary research before the start of the design process.
To understand the insurance services industry and its current practices, I undertook research using the following methods →
Studied the 75-page BRD document outlining business objectives, service processes, and proposed platform solutions.
Analyzed customer and demographic data from the company.
Benchmarked and examined competitor offerings for insights.
Reviewed research reports and whitepapers for industry trends.
Explored online consumer forums to understand user pain points and expectations.
🗂️ Lack of Organization
The portal's products and services were not organized coherently, making it difficult for users to find what they were looking for.
❓ Confusing Terminology
The use of jargon and technical terms in the copy created confusion among users, indicating a need for simpler language that is easier to understand.
🤝 Trust Issues with ULIPs
Users lacked trust in ULIP (Unit Linked Insurance Plans) as an investment option, despite their tax-saving benefits, indicating a need for better communication of benefits and reassurances to build confidence.
👥 Reliance on Agents
Users depended on agents for everything—from policy recommendations and document submissions to service-related tasks like updating personal details and making claims.
⚙️ Essential Features First
The most valued features by users included basic functionalities like making premium payments, updating policies, and downloading statements.
🎯 Users Prioritize Results Over Features
Users were more influenced by the outcomes of policies, such as insuring their family, planning for retirement, and saving on taxes, rather than the features of the policies themselves.
Dashboard Usability
Upon logging in, users are see with a large sales banner that offers little value, potentially leading to banner blindness. Additionally, the dashboard's policy summary fails to display crucial details such as the insured amount and the individuals covered by the policy, which are key information for policyholders.
Lack of Clear CTA and Inconsistent Navigation
The interface lacks a clear call-to-action (CTA) for making premium payments, leaving users unsure of how to proceed. Additionally, the navigation pattern is inconsistent, with the side menu appearing only in the 'My Transactions/Service Requests' section. This inconsistency creates confusion and results in a disjointed user experience.
Lack of Information Hierarchy
The current policy view presents an overwhelming amount of information without a clear hierarchy. Critical details, such as sum assured, premium due, and nominee details, are buried in a sea of unstructured fields, making it difficult for users to quickly find what they need
Complicated and Disjointed Download Process
Downloading premium payment statements and other policy documents was complicated and confusing for users. WIth no central location for downloads, users had to navigate through multiple sections and follow numerous steps leading to frustration.
Competitor Analysis
Benchmarking Over 15 Digital Platforms
We extensively analyzed over 15 apps and websites, reviewing every feature category relevant to the platform.
This included studying their target markets, evaluating product offerings, conducting design audits, and mapping user journeys to identify industry best practices.
In the course of the entire project, we created over 300 screens.
Defining the design objectives early on proved to be instrumental in bringing alignment between different stakeholders, made decision-making faster and informed our feedback discussions.
♿ Accessible
Making the platform adaptive across all devices and browsers, catering to a wide user base.
🔍 Transparent
Showing clear service progress, timelines and providing customer support at important touchpoints.
🎯 Personalised
Delivering personalized content and offers to users based on their interactions, policy details, and customer segment.
💬 Guiding
Onboarding users, the platform must not only be intuitive but also provide actionable recommendations and guidance for their policy management.
Each highlight captures an aspect of the new TATA AIA experience. It calls out which design goal it adheres to, what user scenario or problem its solving, and what the solution and result is.
Information Architecture and Navigation
Products and services were disorganized, making navigation difficult. Jargon-heavy language further confused users.
The Solution
A global and utility navigation schema.
Listed and categorized all offerings to uncover relationships and group features logically.
Created a living IA document to define modules and prioritize agile sprints.
Enabled scalable navigation that helps users find what they need and supports future feature additions.
The Result
A well-structured, adaptive platform that ensures easy discoverability of features and products.
Establishing a Grid and Design System Atoms
The platform needed to work seamlessly across devices and screen sizes while maintaining design consistency.
The Solution
Designed a responsive grid system with defined column structures and adaptive components, supported by accessible colors, typography, and visual elements.
The Result
A scalable and device-agnostic platform that ensures a consistent user experience across all viewports.
Modular and Adaptive Widgets
The interface required a harmonious blend of commercial goals such as showcasing novel items, enhancing sales, and facilitating additional purchases, all while maintaining an intuitive format loaded with pertinent insurance particulars for users.
The Solution
Partnered with a business intelligence vendor to create an analytics engine that tracks user interactions (clicks, scrolls, demographics).
Designed a modular dashboard widgets that adapt based on user behavior, portfolio data, and screen sizes.
The Result
A dynamic and reusable component library that enabled personalized user experiences and supported the business’s cross-selling and upselling goals.
Designing for Mobile-First Paradigm
The platform’s interaction patterns weren’t optimized for different devices.
Desktop users experienced interruptions with page reloads.
Mobile users lacked the latest mobile interaction patterns, leading to inconsistent and disjointed experiences.
The Solution
Redesigned the system to prioritize a mobile-first approach:
Introduced popup modals on desktop for intermediate actions, avoiding full-page reloads.
On mobile, modals mimicked action sheets for better usability, maintaining the same functionality.
The Result
A cohesive, device-agnostic system that ensured a smooth and adaptive experience for both desktop and mobile users, aligning with modern interaction patterns.
Simplifying Complex Flows and Processes
Users struggled with complex processes like fund switching, downloading statements and navigating scattered tools.
Lack of contextual guidance made task completion intimidating and time-consuming.
The Solution
Streamlined navigation and embedded guidance at critical touchpoints.
Key features:
Clear instructions at the start of the process.
Incremental UI reveals as users progress, reducing cognitive load.
Contextual recommendations for tools and services based on user behavior, powered by the analytics engine.
Feedback on completion with a summary and next steps.
The Result
A user-friendly platform that provided actionable guidance to help users confidently complete tasks, from managing policies to executing complex actions.
Thoughtful Transparency for System Feedback
The Problem
Users faced uncertainty at various stages of their policy journey. Unclear process updates and vague error messages made the system lack a structured way of providing real-time feedback and clear next steps, that caused user frustration.
The Solution
We embedded transparency into every touchpoint of the platform
Visual Progress Tracking: Step-by-step visual indicators were added for key processes like policy applications, showing users exactly where they were and what was next.
Error Handling: Actionable error messages were designed for scenarios like failed payments, offering users retry options or quick access to support.
The Result
Transparency not only reduced confusion but also empowered users to complete tasks independently.
This minimized reliance on support teams and enhanced overall trust in the platform.
Impact
⚡ Increase in self-service adoption
⚡ Reduce customer service calls
⚡ Increase in monthly website traffic
⚡ Increase in customer satisfaction score
Financial Performance
In FY2022-23, the company reported a 615% increase in net profit, reaching ₹506 crore, up from ₹71 crore in FY2021-22.
The Individual Weighted New Business Premium (IWNBP) rose by 59% to ₹7,093 crore.
Customer Trust
The company's Retail Sum Assured grew by 44.08% over FY2021-22, increasing from ₹3,07,804 crore to ₹4,43,479 crore, reflecting enhanced customer trust.
🙌
“Asim worked on my team for the TATA AIA Customer portal revamp. It was a huge project with challenging timelines and it was amazing to see how he navigated the complex workflows with his processes. His ability to present ideas and iterate on them quickly was also very impressive. I wish him all the very best for his future endeavours.”
Pranav Shirke
Vice President, Digital Initiatives
product design, ux
2020
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