Agent Awareness

Most people now buy insurance the way they buy everything else, on their own, in a browser, comparing options they cannot fully see. But insurance is not a normal purchase. The stakes are high, the language is unfamiliar, and the consequences stay invisible until something goes wrong.

For decades the person who closed that gap was an agent, a human who explained the tradeoffs and stood behind the decision. In Insurebest's digital flow, that person barely showed up, and when they did, it was already too late to help.

Lead designer on the agent awareness experience, partnered with product, research, and content. The pivotal move was mine. Product had scoped this as an agent selection feature dropped onto an already crowded page. I reframed it as an agent awareness problem, aligned partners around that shift early, then explored patterns and delivered the final design.

The written user story was direct: as a digital shopper, I want to see the agent associated with my quote and have the option to change to someone else, so I can work with the agent who suits me best.

The constraints were just as direct, and they were the real design problem. It could not be a modal. It could not be a standalone page. It had to be a minor, nonintrusive subtask that never competed with the primary task. On desktop it needed to live in the right rail, and it had to be present across the quote flow, from adding a driver through the quote pages. The work was fitting a human introduction into a system that had no room to spare.

Prior research on how shoppers feel about agents during digital quoting pointed one way: agents are valued as backup, not as salesy blockers. Forcing a choice mid-quote fought that instinct. Signaling that someone was already there worked with it.

The language on the screen carried the shift. "Choose your expert," which reads as another task, became "Your agent," which reads as a relationship already in place. I looked outside insurance too, at how real estate profiles and marketplace team cards introduce a person without demanding a decision. Presence is different from action.

Before any screens existed, I sat with product partners and mapped the possible paths. Where could the agent enter the quote, and what would happen if someone kept the recommended agent, wanted a different one, or needed to search a new area? That early mapping is what the design had to support end to end.

With the paths mapped, I explored how the agent should actually appear on screen. I tried an in-line card and carousel first, letting people swipe through agents inside the flow. It communicated real people, but I flagged it myself: the horizontal scrolling was hard to make accessible, and it added weight to a step meant to stay light.

So I moved to an avatar paired with a bottom sheet. A small avatar sits in the flow and stays ignorable. Tapping it opens a focused sheet with the assigned agent, with the option to explore others only if the user wants it. That choice was driven by accessibility and by the constraint that this had to remain a minor subtask.

The final design introduces the agent while people are still shopping, so help feels available without being demanded. One agent is assigned by proximity, and exploring others is always optional.

On mobile, the experience is a bubble you can ignore. Reach the page, see the avatar, and keep going if you are focused. Tap it and the agent card appears in a bottom sheet. Comfortable with the assigned agent? Continue. Want options? Explore pulls a short list of four nearby agents, and expands to eight only if you ask, since the goal is not to overwhelm. Change your agent and a success toast confirms it, then returns you straight to the quote.

The card earns its place with a few deliberate choices. A real photo puts a face before any commitment. A visible rating builds trust without marketing copy. Proximity does the assigning, so the nearest agent is the default. Contact details stay a tap away rather than sitting on the card, which came directly from a product-partner note: drive people to reach out to the agent, but keep the digital flow clean, so reveal the phone and email only when someone engages.

On desktop, the card lives in a persistent right rail, always visible and never in the way of the primary task. That placement came from a product-partner review as well, moving the avatar to the far-right column so it stopped feeling out of place. The layout makes non-interruption structural, not a matter of behavior.