I designed MetLife's digital Life Beneficiary claim: the path a beneficiary takes from the claim kit in their mailbox to a signed, submitted claim. Until then, filing meant a PDF claim form: one document for every kind of beneficiary. The new flow is shaped around who is filing, what they actually have on hand, and how they want to be paid. For people who'd rather call, a phone-assisted path lets a rep start the claim and hand it off to finish online.
The claim was a PDF.
There was no digital intake to redesign. Beneficiaries got a PDF claim form in their claim kit, the same document whether they were a spouse, an executor, a trustee, or a funeral home. It was on them to work out which sections applied and which documents to send, in dense legal language, in the weeks after losing someone. Many called in for help or mailed forms back incomplete, which meant slower payouts and more follow-up for MetLife.
Each source told part of the story. Together they showed that the hard part wasn't the amount of information. It was working out which parts were meant for you. Testing also surfaced something we didn't expect: people were openly annoyed at how hard the TCA was being pushed.
Each one needs different details, different proof, and different legal language. A trustee has to upload a certification of trustee. A funeral home files with an assignment. An individual may need neither. One form for all five meant everyone waded through questions that weren't for them.
Beneficiaries arrive with a claim kit in hand, not a MetLife account.
Start from the kit. A dedicated landing page explains the process in three steps, and the claim-kit access code connects their new account to the right policy. Identity verification is a short, familiar code-by-text or email step.
What someone needs to provide depends entirely on who they are.
Ask one question first: who's the beneficiary? That answer tailors every step after it, from the details we ask for to the documents we require. A trustee sees trust details and a certification form. An individual never does.
What didn't work first. Our early versions asked everyone the same opening questions and branched later. In testing, estates and trusts worked through several screens of fields that didn't apply to them before the flow adapted. That's what moved role selection to the very first step.
A long form feels endless when you can't see where it ends.
Show the whole path before they start. A "Here's what's coming up next" screen lays out all six steps, and a step tracker stays on screen the entire way. It also previews the two things they'll be offered later, so neither feels like a surprise upsell.
Almost nobody has every document on day one. Certified death certificates alone can take time to arrive.
Let people file without everything. The document list is built from their role and earlier answers, and they can continue with what they have and upload the rest later from their dashboard.
Two of the biggest shifts happened between the first wireframes and the final design. Both came straight out of testing.
Early and revised wireframes are simplified recreations made for this case study.
More beneficiaries choosing a Total Control Account, an interest-bearing account that keeps funds with MetLife. The first ask was to make it the default and hide the other payment options.
A clear, honest choice about their money at a moment when trust is fragile. Anything that felt like a sales pitch would cost us that trust.
I pushed back on hiding the alternatives, and the research backed me up: people were already annoyed at how hard the TCA was being pushed. A grieving beneficiary who feels steered on the payment step will start to distrust the whole claim. We landed on making the TCA the featured option and letting the numbers make the case. A side-by-side shows what a payment could earn in a TCA against a typical savings or money market account over one, three, or five years, with the source and date of the rates right there. Other payment methods are one click away, not buried. The same choice appears up front on the "coming up next" screen, so it never feels sprung on anyone.
MetLife partners with Empathy for grief and estate support. We placed the offer inside the contact step as a single, clearly worded checkbox, so help is easy to accept and just as easy to skip.
The signature step carries certifications, state fraud warnings, and IRS tax language that legal requires word for word. We couldn't shorten it, so we structured it: one plain question at a time, notices set apart, and the signature as a single final action.
People file these claims in short bursts, between calls and appointments. So we designed the interruptions as carefully as the main flow: warning before a security timeout and saving their work, offering to save a draft when they leave, and loading skeletons that show the page's shape instead of a blank screen.
Some beneficiaries can't or don't want to file online. They call instead, and before this, a call usually ended with a PDF in the mail. With Vincent, I designed a telephonic intake that pairs a call center rep with the same digital claim. The rep starts the claim on the call, then hands it to the beneficiary to review, add documents, and sign on their own device.
Callers don't always have their claim number in front of them.
Let the rep search three ways: by claim number, by Social Security number or TIN, or by name and date of birth. When nothing matches, the rep sees it right away and can start a new claim from the same screen.
Reps have to cover required language word for word and still sound like a person.
Put the script where the rep needs it. Payment options, including the TCA, come with scripting that walks through every choice, and the signature step carries talking points for the certifications. The rep never has to leave the claim to find what to say.
A beneficiary shouldn't have to type what they just said on the phone.
Make it a handoff, not a restart. The rep sends a secure link by text or email. The beneficiary verifies with a one-time code, then reviews the details already captured, so all that's left is documents and a signature.
In a regulated flow, a design isn't done when it looks right. Each step had its own cover page with its use case and an approval trail, so reviewers could sign off step by step instead of all at once.
Results are still being measured. I'll update this page with the numbers once they're in.
Ask the one question that changes everything first. Role selection did more to shorten this flow than any field-level cleanup could.
Pair with content from day one. Working side by side with Vincent meant the plain-language choices and the layout were decided together, not patched in after review.
Treat legal as a design partner. Bringing legal into review early meant the required language shaped the layout from the start instead of breaking it at the end.
Next up: the multi-claim status page, for beneficiaries of more than one policy, was still being explored when this work was handed off.