Insurance Australia Group, or IAG, is Australia’s largest general insurance group underwriting approximately $7.5 billion of premium per annum. In addition to redesigning IAG’s insurance contracts we also redeveloped their insurance policy booklets.

A lot of document design is based on the traditional book layout – a nice cover, followed by general contents, chapters, headings and body copy. This is great if your reading a novel but testing has shown us that most documents aren’t used in this way. In testing people said that they would only ever use the policy booklet as a quick reference guide, either at the point of taking out insurance or making a claim.

Based on this research we redesigned the booklet so that the main tasks that a customer would carry out in relation to insurance are listed on the main contents page. Task specific sub-contents pages are referenced from this page. From these the customer can swiftly move to a specific insurance topic. Each topic is divided up into three columns – a description of the topic, what IAG will do and under what conditions. This approach enabled us to reduce unnecessary repetition of insurance cover descriptions in the booklets, a source of complexity and confusion for customers in testing.

In testing our initial prototype was able to be used at a level of 43%. Our second prototype significantly improved the document’s performance, and was able to be used at a level of 93%.

Since implementation these booklets have been extremely well received by IAG’s customers, who, based on this design describe IAG as being open, honest and up-front.

In 2002, IAG (Insurance Australia Group) decided to improve its general insurance Certificates for the NRMA, RACV, SGIO and SGIC brands. After years of incremental change, the Certificates had become cluttered and difficult to understand, resulting in high numbers of queries to call centres.

We tested the Certificates to see how well they could be used. We found that customers could not actually use the information on the Certificates to find out what they were or what to do with them. It was also difficult to identify the payment options, or understand any discounts that applied to their premium. Customers also assumed they had a ‘grace period’ and would be covered even if their premium was paid late, when in fact they were no longer covered once the policy had expired.

Based on this research we developed a task-orientated Certificate that utilises a set of easy-to-follow steps on the front page to explain to customers how to use and understand the document. The information is presented in the order that a customer needs it, with contract details starting overleaf and flowing uninterrupted to any pages that follow.

The new Certificate design has radically changed consumer behaviour. Since implementation, negative criticism of the Certificate has dropped dramatically, with customers commenting on how easy the new documents are to use. The steps we introduced have helped to prompt careful scrutiny of the insurance contract, with many customers upgrading their level of cover after realising they were underinsured. Payment amounts, payment options and discounts on premiums have become more apparent. And fewer customers are paying their premium late.

The design was runner-up in the 2004 AGDA Design Effectiveness Award.

Old Certificate with ‘clutter’

Re-designed Certificate with ’steps’

TravelSmart is an initiative of the Government of South Australia to promote alternatives to car travel in urban areas. This brochure is full of information and tips to make travelling without a car easy for residents in Adelaide. Its target audience is any resident from the age of 16 to 60+. We produced the design and created the original illustrations throughout.