More Than Case Study

Turning a 43-Second Wait into a £1m+ revenue opportunity.

I joined RSA Group (parent of More Than) as a UX Architect and Designer on their brand-new internal digital team. Until then, RSA had relied heavily on external agencies — but with growing pressure from insurance comparison sites, they brought digital in-house to better own the customer journey.

While this is one of my earliest case studies, I’ve included it because the lessons I learned at RSA remain hugely relevant — offering practical anecdotes I still use to educate stakeholders on the value of design, UX, and data, and continue to shape the way I approach problem-solving today.

Company

More Than

ROLE

UX Architect & Digital Designer

TEAM

In-house

Duration

2012 - 2014

The Challenge

My journey at RSA began within the More Than product's digital agile team. The car insurance product was underperforming. Conversion targets weren’t being hit, and the product manager raised it with senior stakeholders. My job was to find out why — and how to fix it. Google Analytics showed a 38.83% drop-off after users entered their details (up to 60 user inputs) — but before they ever saw a quote.

That didn’t make sense. Why would users do all the hard work, then leave before seeing the result?

Discovery & Insights

We ran 16 remote user tests and found:

72% of participants encountered a blank loading screen for at least 18 seconds
Some quotes took up to 43 seconds to return
The average user waited just 24 seconds before giving up.
Frustration + Ambiguity = Abandonment.

The tech was working — just slowly. With no feedback or reassurance (just a spinning wheel), the users assumed the site had crashed. They left.

Ideation & Testing

Working with engineers and data science, we ran 3 low-cost multivariate tests. Our goal: Buy time + build trust while the system generated the quote. The winning solution:

A fast-loading “progress” screen (under 0.25s)
Strong imagery to subtly 'place the user in the driver’s seat'
A trust-building micro-interaction which also kept the user engaged: “Your quote is waiting. So that we can keep your information secure; just tell us your postcode.”

The Impact

8% uplift in conversion

£1M+ in incremental revenue in year one alone

25x ROI on the design investment

It was a turning point for the internal team, and for my career. The project proved that you don’t need a big budget to make a big impact. By understanding users, identifying what motivates them, and uncovering friction hidden in plain sight, we were able to deliver results that far outperformed feature-heavy roadmaps.

It showed the business stakeholders the true value of UX — and helped build momentum for a more user-centred culture across RSA Group.

Learnings and Reflections

Over a decade later, I still leverage what I learned from my time in the digital product team within More Than: Talk to users. Bring others with you. And never underestimate the small things that may be holding users back. Here's some key learnings:

Simple friction can cost millions — but often hides behind data

Remote testing shows what local testing misses (e.g. slow home Wi-Fi)

Little moments build trust: a cute pet photo, a progress bar, a helpful message

Buy-in starts with storytelling — not just data

Design doesn’t need to be complex to be impactful