Our initial work focused on understanding Seguros Unimed’s digital capabilities and aspirations. Through executive workshops informed by global best practices, we crafted a vision and governance model for transformation.

Livework brought a powerful blend of service design expertise, startup thinking, technological insight, and fresh business model perspectives. Working directly with Seguros Unimed’s C-suite, we defined four strategic ambitions for 2020:

1. Position the organisation as Brazil’s InsureTech pioneer, innovating beyond market standards
2. Evolve the service model into a B2B2C Digital Service Platform specialising in service, assistance, protection, and prevention
3. Transform the platform into a source of complementary business opportunities
4. Develop their operation into a reference point for digital transformation across the sector

To drive this change, we established “Stormia”—an innovation cell of design, business, and technology professionals working outside traditional structures to identify and pursue transformation opportunities without legacy constraints.

Stormia’s first task involved taking a systemic view of the entire ecosystem. We mapped comprehensive journeys for five key stakeholder groups: beneficiaries, corporate clients, healthcare providers, specialists, and insurance brokers.

This process revealed crucial insights: beneficiaries perceived Seguros Unimed’s five main offerings as just two service lines – Health Assistance and Financial Protection – suggesting an opportunity to unify them into a single “Life Assistance” proposition. More concerning, all stakeholders viewed the company as bureaucratic and outdated, often choosing competitors when possible.

These discoveries opened paths to developing clearer value propositions, improved offerings, and revitalised stakeholder relationships.

To pioneer InsureTech development in Brazil, Stormia organised work across three complementary fronts:

1. Redesigning current digital services to create seamless, intuitive experiences
2. Accelerating internal projects to transform operational capabilities
3. Developing new businesses and partnerships to expand into emerging opportunities

All initiatives were guided by four experience drivers:

Before this transformation, the cooperative network maintained over 120 mobile apps with minimal relevance to users and stakeholders. After Stormia’s prioritisation work, the company unified its offering into a simpler platform with a singular purpose – a “Digital Ecosystem of Shared Value” built on inter-cooperation principles.

Between 2017-2018, we ran four Design Sprints adapted to enable employee participation over four-day sessions, introducing service design methodology internally. The results transformed the organisation:

• Customer-facing technology improved rapidly through deeper understanding of human journeys
• Traditional silos between departments began dissolving, with IT creating an Agile Cell that quickly expanded beyond Stormia’s initial needs
• Seven different MVPs were tested in 2018, all connected to the unified digital platform
• By 2021, the platform reached six million users with annual revenue of $30 million

Most importantly, while preserving its core purpose, Seguros Unimed discovered entirely new ways to deliver value to its ecosystem, responding to genuine human needs while transforming itself inside and out. From a traditional insurer, it evolved into a user-oriented health-insurtech ready to thrive in the competitive digital landscape.

This case was a finalist in the Service Design Awards 2019, recognising the profound impact of human-centered design in reshaping an entire organisation and its approach to healthcare.