digitalizing insurance in india

in 2018, i joined acko as the only hands-on designer on the product team. we were selling insurance online, and in the initial days, i worked closely with my manager and the pms on the purchase journey.

most people in india still trusted a printed, stamped policy over anything on a screen. there wasn't an existing design pattern to follow. we had to figure out, from scratch, what makes someone trust a policy that only exists digitally.

this is the story of building that, screen by screen, over six years, alongside my manager and a rotating cast of pms, designers, and stakeholders who shaped every part of it as much as i did.

here's what shipped, and the story behind how it got there.

role

product designer (2018–2024)

for

acko

Home Page

the home page worked like a storefront for insurance products. people came in and provided basic information, like a vehicle number or bike number, to start the journey. it was optimized to bring people into the purchase journey as quickly as possible.

as acko grew, tabs got added on top of that single purpose. car came first, then bike, then health, then life. each new tab meant the home page had to hold more than one path now, not just push everyone into a single flow.

at first, the focus was on the purchase journey: pre-purchase and purchase. as people bought more insurance, a growing share of users started coming back to manage what they already had, like downloading policy documents. that's what pulled the focus toward my account and policy management.

years later, as the product matured further, the home page you saw after logging in evolved again into a contextual homepage, shaped by what a person actually needed to do that day, not a generic menu of everything acko sold.

My Account

the first feature we shipped after the purchase journey was small: download your policy document. but it sat on top of a bigger behavioral problem. people were moving online to buy, but still wanted paper to hold. a lot of the post-purchase experience was really about shifting that mindset, proving a pdf was as real as a printout.

as acko added bike and partner policies, a single download button wasn't enough anymore. that's what led to my account, one place to find your policy, view the details, download the document, start a claim, and follow the claim through to resolution.

the visual system extended out from here. home page, my account, policy details page, claim flow. all one language now, not one-off screens.

download was the entry point. as health insurance came in, people needed more than a pdf: checking coverage, managing multiple policies, and following a claim through its stages instead of calling someone to ask. that's where policy management grew out of my account.

The App

once health insurance was in the mix, the case for a dedicated app became obvious. we didn't start from a blank canvas. the first version was a conversion of the existing web experience into flutter, and the first app release grew out of that. from there, home page and my account came in-app, followed by settings, help, and eventually the full claims experience. all inside the app, none of it needing a browser anymore.

Value-Added Services

insurance is a low-frequency product. you buy a policy once. you might file a claim once a year, if that. an app built purely for "manage your policy" has no reason to be opened in between, and no reason to be downloaded in the first place if that's all it does.

value-added services were the answer. small, useful features that had nothing to do with a policy but everything to do with staying in the habit of opening acko. that single shift is a big part of why the numbers moved the way they did.

2.5M+

android downloads

+100K

ios downloads

ranked for insurance-category keywords

4.6–4.7★

sustained rating, both platforms

~30%

of all auto (car + bike) sales on-app

+270%

new user acquisition (20k → 85k/month)

+300%

install base (~200k → ~700k users)

not a redesign bump. a direct result of giving people a reason to come back that had nothing to do with needing something from their insurer.

Toward the Protection Destination App

alongside the day-to-day product work, we ran a parallel, unconstrained exploration: what would acko look like with zero legacy constraints, not an insurance utility, but a protection destination. new ia, high-fidelity wireframes, a genuinely different shape for the app. it was never meant to ship as-is. it was meant to set a direction.

by the time i left in may 2024, that direction was already in motion. i designed what would become the next major redesign, v9, before i left. it shipped the following month and was carried forward by the team from there.

none of this was a solo effort. the account model, the app, vas, the protection destination vision, all of it came out of pms pushing on the right problems, other designers building alongside me, and stakeholders keeping the whole thing honest. i was the one holding the pen for six years, while acko went from an early online insurer to a company now heading toward an ipo.

hands holding a smartphone, gradient screen glow

evolution of the acko app home page, from first launch to v9 2024 — Evolution of App

evolution of my account and policy management, from first mweb version to v9 2024 — My Account [Policy management]

value-added services screens, vehicle alerts, challans, pollution certificate reminders — Value Added Services [Explore More]