Digitalizing the Insurance Claims Process

Imagine handling thousands of car accident claims every month using paper forms, manual photo collection, and data entry into a 20-year-old system. That's exactly what one of Sri Lanka's leading insurance companies was doing before our project began.

The company was running parallel systems—their legacy process alongside our new digital platform called insurel. Our mission was to gradually migrate their operations to the digital platform, one module at a time.

This case study focuses on the claims handling process—perhaps the most critical customer touchpoint in insurance. When a customer gets into an accident, they're stressed, possibly injured, and need help fast. The old process was:

• Customer calls customer care after an accident
• Representative collects basic information by phone
• Physical assessor visits the accident site
• Assessor fills out paper forms and takes photos with a camera
• Forms and photos are physically brought back to the office
• Data is manually entered into the legacy system
• Claim is processed by back-office agents

This process was slow, error-prone, and created a negative experience for customers at their most vulnerable moment.

insurel is a comprehensive digital insurance management platform that handles the entire insurance workflow. The platform was already operational with several modules, and our team was tasked with building the claims handling module to integrate seamlessly with the existing ecosystem.

After analyzing the current process and consulting with stakeholders, we focused on three key areas:

• Dynamic Digital Forms Creating intuitive forms that adapt to different claim scenarios
• Mobile-Web Integration Ensuring seamless flow between assessors in the field and office staff
• Status Tracking and Validation Building a system that prevents errors and tracks claim progress

I led the design of the digital forms system that:

• Replaced multiple paper forms with contextual digital variants.
• Implemented conditional logic to show only relevant fields.
• Created a multi-step process with save functionality.
• Added validation to prevent common errors.

The forms were designed to mirror familiar paper workflows while adding digital advantages like autofill, validation, and conditional logic.

I designed the integration between the assessor's mobile app and the web platform:

• Created a status-based workflow where forms would remain in a specific status until required photos were uploaded.
• Designed photo upload templates showing exactly what angles and details were needed.
• Implemented real-time sync between mobile photos and web platform.
• Built a review interface for customer care to validate photo quality.

This integration ensured that assessors could quickly document accidents while maintaining the quality standards needed for claim processing.

Our team implemented a comprehensive status tracking system:

• Visual timeline showing claim progress.
• Automated notifications for status changes.
• Required field validation to prevent incomplete submissions.
• Role-based access controls ensuring the right people handled each stage.

This system provided transparency while ensuring each step of the process was completed correctly before moving forward.

I evolved the form structure from a direct digital translation of paper forms to redesigned layouts with logical grouping and conditional flows. This reorganization with added conditional logic reduced form completion time by half.

The photo upload process transformed from a basic system with minimal guidance to templated requirements with real-time validation, decreasing photo resubmissions by almost completely and significantly improving both assessor efficiency and overall claim processing speed.

As part of the team, I contributed to delivering:

• User flows for all three user types.
• High-fidelity UI designs for the claims forms.
• Interactive prototypes for stakeholder review.
• Design specifications for developers.