Case: Health Insurance

Time frame: 9 months from October 2010

Employer: Aalto University

Methods and tools: Desk research, Interviews, Personas, Journey mapping, Stakeholder mapping, Specification matrix

Challenge:
International students coming to study in Finland were required by EU law to have a certain level of health insurance. No insurance company in Finland would provide this service to the people who needed it. As this Directive was from 2004, the lack of concrete action nationally (and the distributed nature of compliance) had caused many problems for the students wishing to attend universities in Finland.

Design Drivers:
Affordability
Ease of accessibility
Acceptability and predictability (by authorities to ease their burden)
Speeds up Resident Permit applications
Difficult to get a refund

Results (Expected and Unexpected):
Expected
-  You can go to the Study in Finland website
- This insurance helps to speed up the Migri application process because this insurance is pre-approved.
- Reasonably priced and easily renewed

Unexpected
- This insurance is available for students but also for international university staff, their dependents, student dependents, and spouses. We were able to solve an HR issue we didn't originally know about. 
- This insurance is also available to Finnish students going abroad. We were not looking for a solution for them, but we found one.

Role:
Lead designer on this national-level project

Awarded:
I was awarded the "Best international Act of the Year" by the Aalto University Student Union in recognition of having addressing an important issue for their customers.