Launching ManyPets in the US
ManyPets is a pet insurance provider offering cover for cats and dogs, helping owners manage the cost of unexpected veterinary care.
I led the design of the US customer experience, working closely with the Director of Growth & Partnerships, Product and Engineering. My scope extended beyond the checkout itself, covering the wider acquisition journey, connected account experiences and the foundations of the new US digital brand.
Our objective was to successfully launch ManyPets into a new market while making a relatively complex insurance product easy to understand and buy.
Scope
US acquisition journey, checkout and connected digital experiences
Time frame
6–7 months to launch · 1+ year iteration
Contribution
Product strategy, research, end-to-end design and design-system foundations
THE CHALLENGE
The US pet insurance market was still developing, and many customers had little frame of reference for the product. We needed to create an experience that could build understanding and confidence while still converting efficiently.
The challenge wasn't simply to design a checkout. It was to define how ManyPets should explain, sell and scale pet insurance in a new market.
RESEARCH - PART 1 of 3
Before designing the experience, I worked with our market research partner to understand the US insurance landscape and the customer segments we were designing for.
I translated those insights into principles the team could design around, shaping how we framed coverage, price and messaging, as well as which emotional triggers we leaned into or deliberately avoided.
RESEARCH - PART 2 of 3
Understanding how US customers make the decision
Rather than testing our own ideas, I used existing US insurance journeys as research stimuli to understand how customers evaluated the product from scratch.
Three behaviours consistently emerged and became principles for the experience I designed:
prioritise coverage over price,
connect insurance to real health concerns,
and frame it as ongoing care rather than emergency protection.
Research findings
01
US users prioritise coverage over price
In the UK, price is the primary decision driver. In US, participants would pay more to know their pet was fully covered, even when shown a cheaper alternative.
02
Past pet health scares are the primary purchase trigger
The single most common reason US users gave for considering insurance was a personal experience with a sick pet, or hearing about one from a friend or family member.
03
Insurance is seen as ongoing care, not emergency cover
US pet parents didn't think of insurance as something you activate when disaster strikes. This was a fundamental framing difference from UK users.
RESEARCH - PART 3 OF 3
I turned the research into a structured evaluation framework, scoring six competitor journeys against the dimensions that mattered most to customers.
The analysis revealed a clear opportunity: the most comprehensive experiences were difficult to navigate, while simpler ones lacked the depth needed to build trust. Our opportunity was to combine both.
MARKET OPPORTUNITY
Make depth feel simple. Competitors either overwhelmed customers with detail or simplified too far, so I focused on making comprehensive coverage easier to understand.
PRODUCT DIRECTION
Configure first, price second. I structured the journey so customers could understand and shape their cover before being asked to evaluate the price.
SYNTHESIS
Before moving into design, I brought Product, Engineering and key stakeholders together to turn the research into one shared view of the customer journey. We mapped every touchpoint from acquisition through to post-purchase, aligned on what the experience needed to achieve, and surfaced edge cases before they became delivery problems.
The workshop also gave us a common definition of success, with conversion, retention and journey drop-off agreed as measures before I started designing.
Success metrics set before design started
Launch the MVP, learn and iterate after launch
Conversion above 5% in first 3 months (industry avg: ~10%)
Policies sold per week target met in months 1–3
First-month retention tracked and baselined
Drop-off rate per screen identified and tracked
TESTING & ITERATION
I treated the first release as a starting point rather than the finished product, using prototype testing, beta feedback and live behavioural data to continuously challenge our assumptions and decide what to change next.
OUTCOMES
The US experience significantly exceeded its original conversion target and became a blueprint for how ManyPets approached quote and buy journeys across other markets. What started as a US launch created a product foundation that was later adopted across the UK and Sweden.
DESIGN SYSTEM
While delivering the US product, I simultaneously led the foundation work for ManyPets' design system, Unpack. This wasn't a side project; it was built from the components I was creating for the checkout, validated across the US, UK, and Sweden products.
ACCESSIBILITY STANDARDS
Turning fixes into rules
Rather than solving accessibility issues screen by screen, I established reusable standards for contrast, keyboard navigation and screen readers, documenting constraints so teams could make consistent decisions independently.
SCALING THROUGH THE REBRAND
Building resilience into the system
When the brand changed mid-project, the token structure let us repoint components to the new visual language instead of rebuilding them, reducing disruption for Engineering while keeping the product moving.
CHALLENGES
01
Building while the brand was still evolving. I created the token architecture early so the product could keep moving without constantly rebuilding as the visual identity changed.
02
Designing for a market I didn't know firsthand. I used research and competitor evidence to challenge assumptions and give the team a shared basis for decisions.
03
Making the brand work digitally. When parts of the new palette failed accessibility requirements, I worked with Marketing to adapt it and turned those decisions into reusable system rules.
CONCLUSION
