eastwest ageas insurance
Project Polaris: Reimagining the Insurance Customer Journey
A year after the digital transformation at EastWest Ageas, there was a new question on the table: what could we improve now that the foundation was in place? Project Polaris was the answer. It was an internal initiative proposed by the product design team to enhance the existing portals and rethink how leads moved through the system, from first contact with an agent all the way to becoming a policyholder.
Timeline
From UX research and discovery through to final UI handoff across the website, sales portal, and customer portal (2023-2024).
Background
One of the bigger ideas in Polaris was introducing QR codes for insurance agents, so that capturing a lead in person could feed directly into the digital system without any manual data entry. Alongside that, we looked at where the Sales and Customer Portals were still creating friction and designed solutions to address them. This was a two-person design initiative and while I left the company before it shipped, the full end-to-end designs were completed and handed off.
Polaris started with a question we already had partial answers to: where was the existing system still letting people down?
Research & Planning
We ran focus group discussions and usability testing specifically with insurance agents since they were the ones living with the Sales Portal every day. Their feedback was direct and detailed, and it shaped everything that came after. We brought those findings back to the product owners, project managers, and stakeholders across all three portals to align on what Polaris would actually tackle.
Design & Prototyping
Working as a two-person design team, we translated the research into high-fidelity prototypes. A lot of the work centered on the lead capture flow, figuring out how the QR system would work in practice and what the agent experience would look like on the other end. We iterated based on feedback from agent representatives and the wider digital transformation team.
Final UI & Handoff
We wrapped up with a full UI handoff covering the website, sales portal, and customer portal, along with an updated component library built on the existing design system. Everything was presented to the digital transformation team before I left the company.
We built on the design system from the original transformation rather than starting fresh, which meant we could focus on the right problems instead of rebuilding foundations.
Portal Enhancements & UI
The biggest changes were to the Sales Portal. We added a progress tracker so agents could monitor where an application was in real time, redesigned the lead profile view to surface the most relevant information upfront, and built in a quick quote calculator to speed up the sales conversation. All of it was designed to reduce the time agents spent navigating and increase the time they spent actually selling.
Onboarding & User Experience
On the customer side, we introduced a dedicated onboarding dashboard for new policyholders. The existing portal assumed users already knew where everything was, which they didn't. The onboarding flow gave them a clear starting point and a guided introduction to their account.
Connected Ecosystem
The QR system tied it all together. A prospect scans a code, their information flows into the agent's portal automatically, and the lead capture process that used to involve paper or manual entry becomes instant. The goal was a journey that felt continuous from first contact to active policyholder.
Project Polaris was a design initiative, so the results here are about the quality of what we delivered and how it landed with the people who mattered most.
Strategic Alignment & Approval
The final designs were presented to the full digital transformation team and key stakeholders. The feedback was positive and the designs were approved for development handoff, which for an internal initiative of this scope was the milestone that mattered most at that stage.
Optimized Agent & Client Experience
Before wrapping up, we ran a final review of the Sales Portal features with agent representatives. The progress tracker and quick quote calculator in particular resonated, and the feedback confirmed we had addressed the pain points they raised at the start of the project.
Design Readiness & Scalability
We delivered a full high-fidelity design package across all three platforms, an updated component library, and documentation clear enough for the development team to move forward without us in the room. Whether or not it ships, that's the job done right.
