With most of US health plans seeing rising deductibles, consumers are increasingly at risk of high medical bills. Because of this there is a growing category of "supplemental health" plans that pay members directly when they have a covered event. These plans are cheap and can be a great cushion for active or higher-risk individuals. However most employers are reluctant to offer these because it leads to more paperwork and more confusion during the open enrollment cycle. Also consumers frequently misunderstand or mistrust these products due to the plethora of options.
In 2020 we embarked on a vision for a new brand that would offer the products to an employers population and take care of everything - eligibility, administration, payments, dependents, terminations etc. Employees would have powerful information and tools to identify if the products are right for them, can customize their coverage and even pause coverage at any time.
We started research in spring of 2020 and launched a new brand , Stitch, in the summer of 2021. It launched to a pilot group of employers
I co-lead this effort with the VP of product. I developed an overall design plan and budget that included consumer and employer research, concept exploration and testing, brand development, prototyping and an incremental hand-off to engineering.
I provided all direction and guidance regarding design, branding, research and ensured all design work was staffed and meeting deadlines. With a tight timeline to bring this to market, I recruited help from EPAM to conduct user research, concept testing and eventually to develop a brand identity.
We started by conducting research with brokers, employers and consumers to understand how the new offering could be designed to overcome their concerns and be compelling. We engaged with EPAM /Continuum to conduct this phase of the work. We developed concept boards and used the employee responses to the concept to learn how it needed to be adjusted to resonate best.
With the product offering now defined, we needed to develop a digital experience to engage with employees and help them determine what level of coverage was best for them. We sketched out different directions and tested them in another round of testing. We used the results of this test to create a more detailed design mock up which was tested again with users.
The final tested concepts were reviewed with engineering and we came up with a scope for the initial release. We developed detailed wireframes and prototypes for this and tested it with target consumers. Although we needed to abandon some of our most engaging features, we tried out different ways to help users consider how they might package more than one coverage together to form a “plan”. These detailed wires were handed-off to engineering while we shifted onto final visual designs.
The final step in our design journey was the brand for the product. We needed to define a name for the product, develop its voice and visual identity - and it needed to appeal to members who are very skeptical of insurance. We engaged EPAM again to conduct the research and develop the creative.
The new site hellostitch.com launched in March 2021 and has slowly been gaining traction. It hasn't taken off like we hoped - mainly we are stymied by reluctant salespeople and brokers who would rather focus their efforts on the products that emplouyers care about most.
.svg)
.svg)
