Car Contents Insurance
A 0-to-1, session-based insurance add-on that lets parkers protect their belongings. Designed end to end and launched to 2M+ users.
Role
· Product Design Lead
Team
· 1 PM, 10+ Devs, 2 Legal experts
Duration
· 8 months
Year
· 2024
+60%
conversion lift, A/B tested
2M+
monthly users reached
+568%
boost in feature visibility
The Challenge
Anxiety in the parking lot
Add a serious insurance product to a fast parking app without adding a single step of friction.
Car break-ins were rising, and people felt uneasy leaving valuables behind. That opened a new revenue stream: quick, session-based insurance, underwritten by Chubb, offered the moment users felt most vulnerable. The hard part is the mismatch: insurance is a considered, "serious" purchase, while PayByPhone is a fast utility people open to pay and go.
How might we
…add an optional insurance add-on inside the parking flow, with zero friction?
Validation
Proving the bet before designing
Before designing anything, I validated real demand and the features users wouldn't buy without.
QUANT · Fake-door test
Simulated the product live to 50,000 parkers. Interest beat our internal revenue goals. Product-market fit, confirmed.
QUAL · User research
20 sessions surfaced the deal-breakers: people would only buy with no excess (nothing to pay out of pocket on a claim) and no impact on existing premiums.
Explorations
Designing the friction-free flow
Three decisions, each made to protect the core parking flow: where to place it, how to explain coverage, and how to confirm protection.
Entry point: where it enters the flow
Full-screen
✗ Added a screen
Expand / collapse card
✗ Crowded the screen
Confirm-screen toggle
✓ Selected
Coverage overlay: how to explain it
Tabs
✗ Legal: Need all coverage on one screen
Expand / collapse
✗ Legal: users may miss reading required details
Scannable text
✓ Selected
Active session card: confirming protection
Variant A
✗ Too easy to miss
Variant B
✗ Could be confused with button
Session Protected
✓ Selected
Selection criteria: I chose the options that best fit my design principles (fast & simple, clarity & confidence, rapid development) and were technically feasible for the MVP.
Final design
The shipped experience
One tap on the Confirm Parking screen, clear coverage, and a persistent "protected" status for peace of mind.
Confirm + toggle
Coverage overlay
Session Protected
Why these details
Opt-in by default
The toggle stays off until the user chooses it; a serious purchase is never pre-checked.
"No excess" leads
The deal-breaker from research gets top billing in the value line.
Price up front
The session cost sits on the card, before the user commits, so there are no surprises.
Success metrics
How we defined success
Before launch, I set clear success metrics with the PM, so we'd know if the feature was working, and where to dig if it wasn't.
App Store sentiment
Review sentiment in line with comparable features in the app.
Support load
Support-request-to-transaction ratio in line with parking.
Parking funnel conversion
No meaningful drop in the core parking flow.
CCI conversion rate
Meets or beats the target.
Exact targets are under NDA.
The Plot Twist
Launch wasn't the finish line
Low conversion sent me back to the data, and two A/B tests turned the feature around.
Gap 1 · Visibility
47% of users never saw the feature, the subtle MVP design hid it.
Gap 2 · Value
Those who saw it didn't convert, the value wasn't landing fast enough.
Experiment A: Visibility
Hypothesis: a bolder, higher-contrast placement would get the feature seen.
Control
Original subtle placement
Variant 1
Coverage details as pills
Variant 2
New tag
Variant 3 · Winner
High-contrast treatment with new tag
+568%
clicks on the insurance toggle
Experiment B: Value proposition
Hypothesis: leading with a single, concrete benefit would convert better than multiple claims.
Control
Original multi-claim copy
Variant 1
Putting claim amount upfront
Variant 2
Copy around peace of mind
Variant 3 · Winner
Single "no excess" claim
+60%
conversion lift
In motion
The whole journey, end to end
From the Confirm Parking toggle to a persistent "protected" status, the full add-insurance flow runs without a single extra step.
Results & Impact
From a raw idea to a scalable revenue stream
A new revenue stream at real scale, a rescued conversion rate, and validation in the national press.
2M+
monthly users on the feature
+60%
conversion after the A/B rescue
+568%
visibility lift
1.2M
readers, front page of Le Parisien
Reflection
What I'd carry forward
Shipping was the start of the design problem, not the end. We'd defined success metrics up front, but the plan to act on a miss only came together after launch. The post-launch data taught me more than any pre-launch test, and turned a flat result into a 2M-user win. Next time I'd build the experimentation and iteration plan before launch too, not just the metrics, so we can respond the moment a target slips.