At Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurers, I helped lead the launch of Parachute, the company's first innovation of its kind: a direct-to-consumer platform giving eligible group members a digital self-serve option to purchase insurance and gain instant coverage.
As Director, UX and Marketing, I co-led the UX workstream for a new Term Life product, bringing all design work in-house with meaningful savings in both cost and turnaround time compared to previous product launches.
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Our users were Canadian employees and association members leveraging their group affiliation to access affordable, voluntary insurance tailored to their busy lifestyles.
For customers used to dealing with brokers, lengthy forms, and medical tests, Parachute was a breath of fresh air.
Eligible members could go from application to active coverage entirely on their own, in under 10 minutes.
Unlike other Parachute products, which offered eligible members a guaranteed coverage amount without medical questions, Term Life required an underwriting questionnaire. Due to its higher coverage limits, additional fields were needed to calculate a quote, and family coverage was not an option
The design challenge was to absorb that complexity without compromising the experience Parachute was known for: fast, simple, and fully self-serve.
We were operating under a tight budget and timeline. With the sales team eager to bring Term Life to market, working through an external agency would have added time we didn't have. Moving UX in-house was the faster, more agile option.
My role spanned the full design cycle: leading discovery, creating wireframes, prototypes and high-fidelity mockups, and seeing the work through to launch, in close collaboration with the other UX Director on the team.
I managed two copywriters and a graphic designer, overseeing UX copy and French translation.
We kicked off the project with whiteboarding sessions alongside the product owner, business analysts, and insurance SMEs, reviewing the existing product experience and identifying requirements for the new one.
Whiteboarding Session (Invision)
Four areas stood out as requiring new design solutions:
Additional fields for the quote calculator
While the mandate was to minimise UI changes, some modifications to the homepage calculator were unavoidable. We added two extra fields required to generate a Term Life quote: ‘Desired term’ and ‘Household income’.
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Calculator with Additional Fields and Logic Notes (Wireframe)
Lack of family coverage
Term Life was the only Parachute product that did not offer spousal or family coverage. Rather than simply removing the option, we designed a new feature that allowed users to invite their spouse to apply for their own coverage.
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New Invite Spouse Feature (Wireframe)
A complex medical questionnaire
To avoid overwhelming users with the medical questionnaire, we designed it to show only top-level questions by default, with reflexive follow-ups appearing based on each user’s answers. Our recommended layout for indented follow-up questions was ruled out due to system constraints, so we agreed to colour-code them as an interim solution and earmarked our preferred approach for a future phase.
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Colour Coding Solution for Reflexive Questions (Wireframe)
Establishing trust in a newer brand
In response to user feedback about the importance of trust in a newer brand, we replaced the standard account homepage section with ‘The Parachute Promise’: a summary of the brand’s commitment to straightforward and fully self-serve coverage, with a link to the ‘Our Story’ page. With this, executives signed off on the UX, branding, and copy.
Design of ‘The Parachute Promise’ for the Home Page (Figma)
Across all four areas, we followed the same process: my colleague and I produced low-fidelity InVision sketches and clickable Axure wireframes, documenting rules and logic as we went. Once developers confirmed feasibility, we divided the screens and produced high-fidelity mockups in Figma.
I designed desktop and mobile versions of the Term Life home and marketing pages, and ensured the transactional steps remained consistent with the broader platform.
Detail of Home Page Design (Figma)
All UX artifacts, from prototypes and high-fidelity designs, to Confluence pages with English copy and French translations, were completed before the development sprint began. Delivering ahead of each sprint gave developers the clarity they needed and kept the project on track.
The UX team attended end-of-sprint showcases and participated in UAT to confirm alignment before launch. Term Life launched on schedule in July 2022, on budget and without compromising the speed and simplicity the platform was known for.
Desktop & Mobile UI Designs for the Quote Page (Figma)
