From Five Disconnected Tools To One.
Insurance
Underwriting
Dashboard Design
Responsive
Data Visualization
THE CONSTRAINT
Underwriters at General Star were making risk decisions off end-of-day summaries and static exports. The data they needed lived in five separate tools with no shared view of a submission.
The cost wasn't friction. It was decision latency. In underwriting, slower decisions mean fewer policies moved and worse loss ratios. That was the framing that went to the product owner before any design began.
One sprint to run discovery. React and Angular modules already in production. No rebuilds. The design had to fit the technical reality already in place.
WHAT I DID
Ran stakeholder interviews across four underwriting roles in one sprint. Dana, the underwriting lead, had no real-time data at decision time. Marcus, the senior underwriter, was navigating five tools to build one picture. Ellen, the manager, spent more time finding information than evaluating it.
The decisive insight: the tools were built for data entry. Underwriters were using them for decisions. The workspace had to be built from the decision outward.
When the product owner pushed to skip straight to wireframes, a fifteen-minute working session with the current-state journey map moved the conversation. Underwriting leads were in discovery but got cut from the spec reviews. The density and disclosure calls that came back for revision were exactly the ones they would have settled in one pass.
Current-state journey. The underwriting decision across five tools. This is what the workspace replaced.
Underwriter Activity dashboard. Treatment B scored higher on visual interest in early reviews. It won because underwriters need to read data fast under time pressure, and a quieter filter bar keeps the data grid in focus.
AG Grid triage view
AG Grid triage view. Status badges color-coded to underwriting state. Named insured visible at every row. Three rounds of iteration calibrated density against real submission volumes.
Weather and market data built native into the workspace. Underwriters stopped leaving mid-decision to check exposure risk. The widget renders seventeen weather states and nine market variants behind one surface, the landscape shifting with conditions. Live via NOAA. No iframes, no link-outs.
Role-based access and responsive range
Each role saw the access and surfaces its job required, mapped explicitly across the workspace. The whole system was built responsive from laptop to large 4K monitors, the range underwriters actually work on.
| ROLE | Submissions | Rating Engine | AG Grid Triage | Claims & Loss | Reporting & Power BI | Portfolio Activity | Admin & Config |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Underwriting Lead Dana K. | Full | Full | Full | View | View | View | |
Senior Underwriter Marcus R. | Edit | Full | Full | View | View | ||
Claims Reviewer Priya S. | View | View | Full | View | |||
Underwriting Manager Ellen H. | View | View | View | View | Full | Full | Edit |
OUTCOMES
25% Faster Decisions
Underwriters went from assembling a picture across five screens to reading and acting on risk in one place.
0 Custom Workarounds
Five disconnected tools replaced by one role-based workspace. Nothing left to work around.
5 Tools Became 1
One workspace. Every submission, every role, every decision surface in one place.
4 Frameworks Unified
React, Angular, AG Grid, and Power BI on one tokenized component system.
Dashboard
Claimant Form
Renewal Form
What I'd do differently
Bring underwriting leads into component review. They were in discovery but got cut from the spec sessions where density and disclosure calls got made. Every one of those decisions came back for revision. An underwriter would have settled them in one pass.