Taira Liceaga - UX Design

Project overview

As Director, UX and Marketing at Munich Re, I co-produced wireframes and high-fidelity mock-ups, and led a team of two copywriters and one graphic designer for the addition of a new Term Life product to their digital insurance platform, Parachute.

This project marked a milestone for the UX team: for the first time, we handled all design work in-house, reducing costs, building internal expertise, eliminating agency dependencies, and delivering UX deliverables ahead of each sprint.

Homepage Hero Banner and Calculator (Figma)

The challenges

The Term Life product was eagerly awaited by the sales team, but came with a tight budget and a mandate to minimize deviations from existing products. We needed to move quickly, working from business requirements, stakeholder input, and user feedback gathered through the customer service team.

Discovery and requirements gathering

We kicked off with whiteboarding sessions alongside insurance subject matter experts, business analysts, and the product owner, reviewing the existing life product experience while identifying and prioritizing requirements for the new one.

Key differences we needed to design for:

Additional fields to calculate a Term Life quote
A longer medical questionnaire due to higher coverage limits
No family coverage option (unlike other products)

Whiteboarding Session (Invision)

Agile wireframing and problem-solving

Starting from low-fidelity InVision sketches, my colleague and I co-created wireframes in Axure, using clickable prototypes to illustrate interactions for developers, with notes documenting product-specific rules and logic.

We adapted the shared homepage calculator to accommodate two additional fields ('Desired term' and 'Household income') required to calculate Term Life quotes.

Calculator with Added Fields and Notes (Wireframe)

Since family coverage wasn't offered, we designed a new feature allowing users to invite their spouse to apply for their own coverage.

New Invite Spouse Feature (Wireframe)

To avoid overwhelming users, the medical questionnaire displays only top-level questions by default, with reflexive follow-ups appearing based on each user's answers.

Reflexive Questions (Wireframe)

Where our recommended indented design for follow-up questions was ruled out by system constraints, we agreed on an interim colour-coding solution, with the preferred approach earmarked for a future phase

Branding and high fidelity designs

Once developers confirmed feasibility, my colleague and I divided the pages between us in Figma. I designed the homepage and marketing pages in both desktop and mobile views, while keeping layouts consistent with the broader platform.

Marketing Blocks on Home Page (Figma)

Figma Design: Marketing Blocks on Home Page

In response to user feedback about the importance of trust in a newer brand, we replaced the standard 'Your Parachute Account' homepage section with 'The Parachute Promise': a summary of the brand's commitment, with a secondary CTA linking to a new 'Our Story' page. Executives signed off on the UX, branding, and copy.

New Section on Home Page (Figma)

Term Life - Detail of Figma Design - The Parachute Promise

Development and launch

All UX deliverables, including Axure prototypes, Figma designs (desktop and mobile), and Confluence pages with copy and French translations, were completed before the development sprint began.

The UX team attended end-of-sprint showcases and participated in UAT, confirming that development matched the designs and requirements. The product launched on schedule in July 2022.

Quote Page - Desktop & Mobile (Figma)

Term Life - Detail of Figma Design - Quote Page

Learnings

In-house beats agency when the team is ready.
‍While external agency support had been valuable in the platform's early days, the team had grown into the work. Bringing everything in-house proved faster, more collaborative, and better suited to an agile environment.
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Early collaboration with development prevents late-stage rework.
Because UX, delivery, and development worked closely throughout, designs were well adapted to system constraints from the start, and very few clarifications or modifications were needed during the build.

Streamlining the design cycle