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GEICO: Commercial Vehicle Illustrations
The Overview
For the first time, GEICO’s commercial policyholders could report claims online, and the project required box truck illustrations to help them select damaged areas.
Read Time
8 Minutes
Project Duration
6 Weeks
Platform
Web + Mobile
Team
Graphic Designer (Me), and (PM) Product Managers
Tools
Figma
The Problem
300K+ commercial policyholders lacked an online damage tool.
Personal auto policyholders could select damaged areas using a car image, but this option wasn’t available for commercial policyholders (CPs).
This issue cost the company $30M in adjuster support through calls and chat support
There was no existing commercial illustrations to match the new solution to.
This is today's personal auto damage selector, with the car designed by another UI teammate.
The Solution
A collection of box truck illustrations with hoverable highlights
To meet stakeholder expectations and maintain GEICO’s branding, I reused the angles and specs from the personal auto damage selector’s car illustrations to create consistent box truck visuals for the commercial damage selector.
Matched the styling of other GEICO vehicle illustrations
Represented damaged areas correctly through blue outlined sections of the box truck
Benchmarking
Exploring what styles to use for the box trucks
During early design stages, I consulted the designer behind GEICO’s personal auto damage selector illustrations. They emphasized keeping vehicle illustrations general, as GEICO couldn’t create tailored visuals for every policyholder’s vehicle type. This lead as my main inspiration.
Illustration Style Explorations
3D Models
Lacked GEICO’s brand consistency and I thought it was too complex for customers to select damage areas.
Flat Color Models
Were great in highlighting broader areas of the vehicles, but could not show detailed parts.
GEICO’s Existing Style
The current style was minimal yet detailed enough for customers to recognize highlightable areas.
I received an excel sheet and materials outlining what the commercial illustrations needed to reflect. The product manager explained the illustrations would represent all commercial vehicles, meaning CPs with various vehicles would see a single, general illustration.
After Benchmarking
What I Learned
Learn Contraints Early
I saved time by analyzing metrics and consulting product managers, learning box trucks accounted for the majority of commercial claims at GEICO.
Examine Details
Reviewing stakeholder resources ensured every project requirement, like vehicle angles, was fully covered step by step.
Moving forward, After gathering all key insights from stakeholders and the design team, I began ideating the box truck designs. I consistently checked in to ensure branding and illustration details aligned with project goals, creating an efficient feedback loop.
The Final Design
GEICO: Commercial Box Truck Illustrations
Box truck illustrations, that match the current auto policy damage selector car style.
At the time, a platform switch caused the loss of many design assets, leaving me with minimal references—mainly screenshots of other GEICO vehicle illustrations.
Successfully Matched, the old car design to the new style of box trucks
Met stakeholder requirements, created the designs for the highlighted areas of damage
Captured, all necessary angles for the users to select the commons areas of their vehicle
Created in Figma
Freight Liner Box Truck 2012
Product in use
Demo of the damage selector
One major constraint was time and resources: GEICO couldn’t dynamically change the vehicle type in the commercial damage selector. This meant that regardless of the vehicle policyholders owned — whether a cargo van or pickup truck — they would only see a box truck illustration.
Choosing not to user test for this project, as the damage selector product had already been tested prior, I conducted internal research and learned box trucks made up most commercial claims, making them the best fit for the commercial damage selector experience.
Continuation of Requirements
Representing Damages
Claims TTL/ Box Truck- Front Damages
Claims TTL/ Box Truck- Rear View
Claims TTL/ Box Truck- Left Side
Included in the project requirements were an excel sheet listing each box truck perspective and key specs, such as TTL (Touch Total Loss), GEICO's term for their claims process.
Additional Solutions
Maybe a cargo van would have worked?. . . Internal data showed otherwise.
Initially, I designed a cargo van and suggested the cargo van be used as the general vehicle for the CP damage selector experience, but after the PM took a week to search for the data, they confirmed that box trucks had the most claims.
Future Opportunities
Conclusions & Findings
New design asset collection: Overall I provided a matched and branded collection of box truck illustrations, that CPs now interact with when reporting online claims. This collection is just one of the mainly elements and experiences that will assist GEICO in reducing its $30M adjuster support cost for all of commercial policies.
The Power of Internal Research: This project taught me that I can quickly create effective illustrations by leveraging data and internal insights from developers and stakeholders. However, I recognize that user research is essential for a full 360-degree view of CPs perspectives. In this case, user testing was likely unnecessary, as the damage selector experience had already been validated for personal auto users — the focus here was aligning new box truck illustrations with a proven interaction model.
What would I do differently next time?
1.
Push for user testing, even with the damage selector in place, I’d advocate harder next time for user-testing new illustrations to ensure users fully interpret damage areas based on highlights.
2.
I’d suggest adding more specific damage areas beyond the general sections provided, like left or right headlights, and discuss this refinement with stakeholders.
