02. Quick Estimate
The very first consumer mobile app from CCC Intelligent Solutions - Quick Estimate is a white-label B2C native mobile and HTML5 product for automotive insurance policyholders. It provides the ability to capture claims information from their smartphone, collect photos and share information through a self-guided experience. Designed to be simple, it accelerates the claims process by leveraging mobile technology and AI to recommend the optimal path to resolution. Policyholders can review claims, estimates, and repair status all through a single seamless experience.
Advanced AI technology enhances the experience to be intuitive for customers and effortless for insurance carriers. With remarkable accuracy, algorithms analyze photos, detect damage, and assess whether a vehicle is a total loss or repairable. The app recommends preferred repair shops and provides appointment scheduling based on insurers’ custom guidelines for smarter, faster, personalized resolutions.
Role & Reviews
Beginning in 2013, I was one of two designers working on this critical project. Over the following years I was promoted to manager and scaled the team with 5 additional designers, 3 interns and worked with numerous mobile developers and product managers making iterative feature enhancements.
Taking into account dozens of rebranded versions for insurance carriers, this product has seen hundreds of thousands of downloads with an average 4.5/5 rating. Quick Estimate (white-label version) is available on Apple App Store and Google Play Store. We created HTML5 versions as well.
Problem
The primary challenge on this project was to simplify the photo guidance into as few steps as possible and utilize visual guidance instead of instructional copy as much as possible. Additionally, many users have just experienced a traumatic and unexpected auto accident. Users might be shaken up, on the side of a busy highway or inside their garage after returning home where space to walk around the vehicle is tight and lighting conditions are poor resulting in poor quality photos. The last challenge was crafting a generic white-label solution that could serve our clientele of over 350+ insurance carriers but still allow enough customization for rebranding.
Discovery
Insurance carriers require multiple photos from specific angles for several reasons. One is so photos can be analyzed by AI that requires very specific angles, distances and lighting to run algorithms and compare against models for an accurate estimate. Second is to prevent fraudulent claims by ensuring the vehicle is real and doesn’t have prior damages that could be falsely claimed.
My team quickly learned majority of users would not read even basic instructions around how far from the vehicle to stand or what angles to capture. Lastly, we researched all the vehicle types the app would need to support (sedan, coupe, truck, SUV, van, etc).
Solution
My biggest individual contribution to Quick Estimate consisted of the idea of overlaying vehicle outlines on the user’s camera. I started with the most popular sedan models on the road and stacked a dozen of these car photos taken at the same angles in photoshop. I traced around them making a generic enough shape that fit most sedans but still clearly indicated vehicle type and angle. After testing an interactive prototype my team was able to prove that the vast majority of users had a far easier time understanding how to capture photos correctly and completed it significantly faster. My team then created the remaining vehicle type overlays so that the same idea could be used for almost any vehicle on the road. This overlay concept also helped lead R&D to build a feature that automatically captures photos for users when it detects the vehicle is within frame and positioned at the correct angle on the users phone.
Evaluation
Initially we tested on a 1:18 scale toy model of a sedan. Next I found a nearby parking garage that we could have an actual car to walk around and test the camera features with participants. When we tested earlier versions we found users would regularly crop out parts of the vehicle. Users wanted to capture whatever they felt was the most important usually just being the damaged area. This led to my idea of an outline overlaid on the camera. Eventually I managed to acquire budget for Usertesting.com and we remotely tested people across the US with their own vehicles in real-world environments. We learned new issues were lighting and space. Users could be on the side of the road or inside a dark garage. The next iteration was updated to notify users of inadequate lighting conditions and we made the photo capture portion available in landscape mode so users could stand closer and still capture the entire vehicle.
Production
This app went through numerous iterations over several years. My team worked very closely with mobile developers to understand what was technically feasible and ensure the product was built per design specs. In 2015 the first trial-run began with one of the top 5 nationwide insurance carriers in the world. Happy with performance - a multi-million dollar contract was signed to continue partnering with CCC. Less than a year later an entire department of over 20 mobile developers was created and a suite of B2C products have followed.
Dozens of nationwide and regional insurance carriers have run trials with Quick Estimate. Some trial with the CCC white-label version but most want their own branded version. This required each version to be customized to reflect that company’s branding. Eventually I created a Style Configuration Form to relay to clients what could and couldn’t be customized and easily capture design specs for developers to implement faster. Today over 85+ carriers have chosen to use Quick Estimate to elevate their customers’ experience.
