Customizable travel insurance app

Project background  

Travel insurance covers the expenses incurred and minimizes the risks during travel. It acts as a cushion in trip cancellation due to a medical emergency, loss of baggage, evacuation due to medical conditions or hijack, and loss of travel documents, among others. 

The global travel insurance market was valued at $19.2 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach $39.3 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 17.4% from 2020 to 2027.

Our client, one of the UK’s well-known tour providers, had a high-load travel web portal with numerous end-users. The customer wanted to create a travel insurance app to cover all platforms and especially mobile devices. The main idea was to provide the web platform users with a new mobile experience and give them an opportunity to issue an insurance policy, claim it or cancel travelers’ insurance on the go.

Business needs 

– This client needed a real-time insurance app from scratch, starting with a business process of obtaining insurance for a tourist and scripting many possible scenarios. 

– The client was looking for a professional, dedicated development team to offer his business the best travel insurance solution. 

– Our team suggested cross-platform app development on Flutter to cover all platforms and save clients time and money on native apps development.  

– The client also needed an experienced Product Owner to manage the remote teams from Great Britain, Belgium, Argentina, and Ukraine in close cooperation with the business owners.  

– Finally, the client was looking for effective integration of his travel insurance solution with popular payment systems.

Product features  

1. Add a new trip. An app user shares some basic details about their trip: selecting the dates and destination point
2. Policy preview. After the dates and locations are mentioned, the user can see the updated cost of the insurance policy
3. Select the number of travelers and their age. The cost of insurance will be updated automatically depending on the provided information
4. Eligibility check. (UK residence, etc.) and extras like winter sports cover, golf cover, wedding cover
5. User(s)/traveler(s) information. Full name, contact number, email
6. Insurance preview. With trip summary and what’s covered by this insurance policy
7. Save all insurance docs. To phone or share with others
8. Cancellation. The insurance policy can be easily canceled in a few steps. Before approval, the user is asked to specify the cancellation reason

Solution

The client’s team had many ideas for travel app features, so the most effective way was to organize our work according to Agile methodology with 2-week sprints.

– Our BA and QA team gathered, analyzed, and processed many user stories from a UX perspective and insurance policy requirements. For instance, what happens with travelers’ insurance claims if the app User is an elderly or a teen, possible reasons for insurance cancellation, the requirements, and what travel insurance covers.

– CHI development team also had an in-house Project Manager. He was in charge of all distributed teams and took an active part in product development.

– We completed MVP design and development and presented a working prototype to our client.

Our technology stack

• Node.js
• Dart/Flutter
• Ingenico payment gateway integration
• AWS S3
• AWS EC2

Initially, the client doubted whether he needed apps for both Android and iOS platforms (native app development) or a cross-platform one. Considering the client’s desire to cover all platforms with the same smooth customer experience, we offered to proceed with a cross-platform app using Flutter. 

The cross-platform app provides a similar native mobile experience and benefits at a more reasonable cost, for a bigger audience, and much faster. Such an app is created with a single cross-platform development tool, so only one code base is made.  

Tech stack: Node.js, Dart/Flutter, Ingenico payment gateway integration, AWS S3, AWS EC2. 

Key achievements delivered

1. We gathered a large development team fast, within a week;
2. We analyzed and offered an effective cross-platform solution for travel insurance provider;
3. Our Business Analysts and QA experts worked out many travel insurance scenarios of the app;
4. We created and released a stable cross-platform app on Flutter from scratch;
5. From the UI/UX side, we tested the best business flow and development;
6. Our Product Owner handled communication among four international teams from Belgium, Great Britain, Argentina, and Ukraine;
7. We successfully integrated the Ingenico payment gateway;
8. We minimized the paperwork and boosted customer satisfaction.