Market Match Tool
This tool simplified the decision-making process for independent agents, making it quicker and efficient by 30+% overall and more reliable to find the right insurance carrier without wasting resources. The goal is a more seamless, efficient, and data-driven user experience.
About the Project
Renaissance Alliance provides independent insurance agents with market access, placement services, and technology to accelerate growth while maintaining their independence. An important aspect of my role at Renaissance Alliance was owning new tools, the design system, and the overall workflow that would help make Renaissance more competitive and save time for our insurance agents. Users need to make quick and smart decisions when it comes to selecting the right carriers, and this can often be incredibly consuming. A common case to consider an independent agent is working with a small business client who needs cyber liability coverage. The agent isn’t sure which of their appointed carriers are currently writing cyber policies for that industry or risk size. With Market Match, agents enter risk details and instantly see which carriers are a fit. They send targeted submissions to only the most likely carriers. This speeds up responses, improves client experience, and boosts the chance of closing the deal. When I joined Renaissance, I was tasked with leading the creation and optimization of a key feature, using extensive customer feedback to shape its development and ensure it met user needs.
How might we…
Help independent agents quickly identify the right carriers for specific risks, reducing the time spent on applications and improving submission accuracy?
Discovery
The first thing the product manager and I did was meet with customers in both big and small agencies to learn about the issues, pain points, and overall needs. Complaints about the feature had been pretty consistent across different users, with the main issues being:
The agent submits applications to 6–8 carriers, hoping someone bites.
Several decline due to appetite mismatch.
It takes days to gather responses and delays the quote to the client.
The agent wastes time chasing down answers and risks losing the deal.
The UI needed to give the option for the agent to quickly enter the customer's info (name/address).
Enter description/class code and state to narrow down options and save time.
The search needed to result in a table that gave the most important information at a glance, with options to expand each column for additional details.
There was also strong customer interest in being able to expand the columns for additional information, as this would allow them to get a bit more explanation on the data without overwhelming the screen visually.
UX Deep Dive - Research
The product manager and I began by conducting research with independent agents who had voiced concerns about the existing process for carrier submissions. We wanted to ensure that the new Market Match tool would address their pain points and streamline their workflow. After building initial clickable prototypes in Figma, we tested the tool with additional users. We found they preferred a simpler, more streamlined flow with actionable items consolidated on a single screen. They also wanted the content to be more concise and to the point. We conducted a survey and discovered that using “carrier interest” instead of “appetite” would resonate more clearly with users.
Additionally, we received very positive feedback about the tool’s ability to quickly display multiple carrier options, which helped validate the importance of this feature for future versions.
User Interviews
“I spend way too much time guessing which carriers will actually take on the risk. If this tool could show me exactly who’s interested, it’d save me hours.”
“I’m used to sending out multiple submissions to carriers and waiting days for a response. This tool would let me be more proactive and get faster answers.”
“Having all the carrier options on one screen would make this so much easier. I don’t want to click through multiple pages just to see who’s a good match.”
“If I could see a list of carriers that are most likely to quote a risk, that would improve my placement rate significantly.”
WireFrames & Iterations
One of the big questions I had when creating the iterations was whether the user would prefer fewer steps with more content overload on each screen or more steps with fewer action items and content per step. I designed a few different options to test out with our users. We ultimately landed on having fewer screens with more content overload, as seen below. Since saving time was one of the main things users asked for, we decided this was the best course of action. After we iterated and showed users both internally and externally, they indicated they preferred this as well. The more data they had at a glance, the better and quicker their decisions would be. We went through 4 rounds of iterations. Below are the high-fidelity screens we presented and implemented as part of this brand new tool.
Streamlining the Submission Process with Market Match
This was the most common use case for Market Match: agents needed to quickly identify the right carriers for a specific risk. To support that, we designed the flow to pre-fill key fields—such as risk type, industry, and location—based on the existing submission. This allowed agents to move through the tool efficiently, often without needing to re-enter any information, while still keeping everything editable for flexibility.
Before Market Match, agents were manually submitting to multiple carriers without knowing their appetite, then navigating to separate drafts to update or finalize details. The new flow eliminated these extra steps, reducing submission fatigue and improving placement accuracy—all within a single, streamlined experience.
Result
With the launch of Market Match, agents were able to quickly identify which carriers had an appetite for a given risk, significantly reducing the number of unnecessary submissions. This led to a 30–50% decrease in time spent on carrier outreach, faster quote turnaround, and a more streamlined workflow. Agents reported feeling more confident in their placements and appreciated having clearer direction early in the submission process.