1st Central · Conversion.com · 2021 · Case study · 7 min
1st Central sold car insurance against AXA and Admiral with a fraction of the name recognition and a quote journey that changed shape depending on the product. In six weeks I redesigned the journey around the moment people decide whether to trust you.
Projected revenue
+£35mover five years, from the 50% A/B rollout
Ancillary sales
10×on some add-ons, per the client's digital manager
Follow-on
Home V1asked to design their new home insurance journey
Internally
Design of the yearConversion.com, 2021
If you only read one section: what I decided the world what was broken what I learned speaking client-ese what happened differently
01 · The world
1st Central had run small experiments with us for a while. In October 2021 they asked for something bigger: redesign the entire quote journey, the page that made them more money than anything else they owned, and give the brand an identity while we were at it.
The catch was the calendar. Six weeks from kickoff to developer handoff. So Aaron at Bunnyfoot built the mid-fidelity prototype while I ran research, visual exploration and the high-fidelity screens in parallel, and we met in the middle.
Overlap was the point, not a compromise. Research fed wireframes before it was finished.
02 · What was broken
Pick a different product and you got a different journey. That was expensive to maintain, impossible to experiment on, and it looked its age.
Each product had its own flow, so every content update and every experiment had to be built three times.
Paragraphs where a line would do. People skimmed or skipped whole sections rather than interact with them.
For an unfamiliar brand, dated design is not neutral. It is a reason to go back to the comparison site.
So the goals were
03 · What I learned
Two weeks of research is not much, so I leaned on what we already had. Each finding below names the behavioural mechanism behind it, because that is what told me what to build.
Simple policies with few add-ons convert best on one page. Brands with real product tiers need multi-page journeys for the clarity.
So: multi-page, with one card per decision.
Insurance is already stressful. Paragraphs of caveats made the journey feel busy and raised the sense of risk. Simple visuals and generous whitespace calmed it.
So: strip content to what changes the decision; move the rest behind disclosure.
The exit survey was full of people who could not progress. Clear error messaging and inline help would stop abandonment before it started.
So: validation that explains, not just flags.
Nobody knew 1st Central, but everyone knew Trustpilot and Defaqto. Social proof could stand in for the name recognition the brand didn't have.
So: trust signifiers next to the price, not in the footer.
04 · Speaking client-ese
The brief was blue sky. "Forget the rules, throw some confetti in there." So I did: illustrative, geometric, playful, minimal, eight directions for the quote hero in about a week.
The primary stakeholders loved the expressive ones. Then compliance reminded everyone that insurance is a risk-averse industry, and a lively debate about scenery and personalisation converged on the simplest hero possible. Hover the strip to see them in colour; the one that shipped is outlined.
The lesson was not "be conservative." It was: when the container has to be quiet, put the personality in the parts that do the persuading.
05 · What I decided
The final journey. Three structural decisions on the landing page, and a set of small nudges on the pages after it.
The old page nested boxes inside boxes, so it was never clear what needed doing. One card per action made the next step obvious, and cut dev time for both the build and future experiment variants.
93% of claims paid, Trustpilot 4.5, four million policies, placed immediately under the price, which is where someone decides whether to keep reading.
The same component set serves every product tier. Content is a configuration, not a redesign.
The pages after the price
Past the landing page the job changed: keep attention, make tiers legible, and guide people to the cover that fits them, which is usually a step up from the default.
The ribbons and the scenarios are the same move as the trust row: give an anxious person something concrete to hold while they decide.
06 · What happened
The new journey went live to 50% of customers as an A/B test. The sales uplift was large enough that the client extrapolated it to a five-year revenue figure before the test had finished.
Projected revenue
+£35mClient's projection over five years from the uplift measured in the 50% A/B rollout. Their number, their model; I've reported it as they did.
Ancillary sales
10×on some add-ons, per the client's digital manager.
Experimentation budget
2×The client doubled their testing budget with us.
New business
HomeAsked to design V1 of their home insurance journey.
Internally
Design of the YearDesign of the Year at Conversion.com's review, for scope, complexity and client response.
Some of our ancillary sales are up by over 10x! Could we send you a fruit basket?Oliver Beadell · Digital Manager, 1st Central
You guys have been stars to work with. You'll be leading on the Home design, too, right?Paul Toppin · Head of Digital and Marketing, 1st Central
Happy devs. This has massively simplified the overall build!Craig Higgins · Senior Project Management Consultant, 1st Central
Test design: 50/50 split, [duration] weeks. Primary metric: quote-to-policy conversion. Uplift: [x%]. Figures in brackets are for Ruth to confirm.
07 · Differently
I'd have tested the trust row on its own. It went live inside a full redesign, so I can tell you the journey worked but not how much of it was the social proof. That is the question I most want the answer to.
I'd have taken the "blue sky" brief less literally. A week on eight heroes was a good week, but two heroes and a conversation with compliance on day one would have bought time for a second round on the add-on pages, which is where the money turned out to be.
And I'd keep the fruit basket email. Some outcomes don't fit in a tile.
Section 07 is a draft in Ruth's voice to confirm or rewrite. Figures in square brackets are placeholders. Hero explorations are cropped from the original case study export; three were clipped at the page edge.