Groupe Mutuel

Groupe Mutuel is Switzerland's only multiline insurer and the country's third-largest health insurer, serving around 1.3 million private customers. The Customer Area, the personal online account through which customers manage their insurance, available as both an app and a web portal, has become one of the places where this relationship is lived day to day.

In 2022, Groupe Mutuel invested in improving the digital experience around its core health-insurance services and dedicated a team to the Customer Area. With strong support from the department's director, the mobile app became the first real testing ground for applying the Double Diamond method - not as a theoretical framework, but as a practical way to shape better customer experiences.

When Liip joined that year, Groupe Mutuel already had a clear ambition: to move towards a more product-led way of evolving Customer Area. The real challenge was to make this ambition tangible in daily practice, while gradually shifting from a project-driven setup to a more iterative, collaborative, and evidence-based way of working across design, product, and development.

Liip's designers did not step in as external experts with ready-made solutions. They joined Groupe Mutuel's service designers as teammates, building on the product knowledge already present and learning how the Customer Area worked from the inside. Together, the teams gathered evidence, shaped hypotheses, tested ideas and turned complexity into clearer design decisions. Over time, this collaboration created a shared way of working - one that made it easier to examine, improve and evolve the customer experience.

Groupe Mutuel chose Liip because they needed more than design execution. They needed senior designers who could work inside a complex product environment, understand business stakes, navigate stakeholder conversations and contribute without imposing ready-made answers. UX writing in French and German was also a differentiator: key journeys had to become clearer across language regions, including the German-speaking market, where customer satisfaction had previously been lower.

The work happened side by side. Liip joined the Customer Area team as teammates, working with service designers, product owners, business stakeholders, developers and business analysts. The value came from bringing design expertise into the day-to-day product work:

• Exploring customer needs, helped clarify priorities, shape hypotheses and turn them into concrete improvements.
• Discovery and problem framing helped identify what really needed to be solved.
• Prototypes made possible futures visible and testable. Developers and business analysts contributed in their technical and operational perspectives early, helping the team shape concepts that were both desirable and feasible.
• User testing brought evidence into the conversation and helped make the experience clearer, more consistent and easier to evolve.
• UX writing made complex insurance information clearer, calmer, and more human, especially in moments that could feel stressful or financially sensitive.
• Native French- and German-speaking Swiss UX writers worked across both languages to simplify technical terminology, align wording and adapt the tone for each linguistic region, making the journeys easier to understand and trust.
• Interface design and design library support helped turn insights into coherent journeys, while providing reusable foundations that kept the experience consistent as the product continued to grow.

Our aim was to lay the foundations for the continued evolution of the Customer Area across mobile and web - not through one single redesign, but through three phases of work that progressively strengthened the product, the team and the design practice around it.

First, building the foundations.
In 2022, Liip supported the redesign of the Customer Area app, while integrating Groupe Mutuel’s new brand identity from the start. We collaborated with the internal teams to clarify the vision, priorities and roadmap. We used UX audits and user research to ground decisions in evidence rather than opinion.

Then, embedding a product-led way of working.
From 2022 onwards, the Double Diamond became part of the Customer Area team’s rhythm. UX writing also became a key design lever. In French and German, Liip’s UX writers made technical insurance content clearer, calmer and more reassuring in both French and German, especially in financially sensitive moments and in the German-speaking market, where satisfaction had previously been lower.

Now, scaling the practice.
Starting in 2025, the approach extended beyond the app, with the website team joining through benchmarks, workshops and UX audits. In 2026, Groupe Mutuel created a Design Office to strengthen design practice across teams and help them move from isolated improvements towards a shared, consistent and continuous way of shaping customer experiences.

Liip’s contribution went beyond improving the interface. It involved working together with the Groupe Mutuel team on the product vision, developing user experience scenarios, aligning stakeholders around decisions and creating a digital experience customers could trust.

The result was more than a set of improved journeys. Over time, design became a stronger product capability within the Customer Area team: a way to ask better questions, make better decisions and continuously improve the experience. What began with one product is now extending to other Groupe Mutuel teams, supported by the Design Office.

User research, service design and UX/UI design connected customer needs with business priorities, helping the team make decisions based on evidence rather than opinion and making the Customer Area experience more coherent with each release.

The Double Diamond method gave this collaboration a shared rhythm. It helped the team investigate problems before defining them, explore multiple visions before narrowing them down and test possible solutions before committing to one. Instead of being a theoretical design method, it became a practical way for product, business, design and development to move forward together.

UX writing in French and German made complex insurance content clearer and more reassuring. This was especially valuable in financially important moments, where better guidance can reduce confusion, build trust and support adoption.

Changing mandatory health insurance is not just an administrative task.
It is a financial decision, often made with uncertainty. The team redesigned the journey so customers could better understand their options, compare what mattered and move forward with more confidence. UX writing played a key role, replacing technical insurance language with clear, calm guidance when people needed it most.

The impact was visible.
According to Groupe Mutuel, digital channels handled 49% of contract changes in 2025 - the first year they drew level with advisers and phone. For customers, the Customer Area became a clearer place to make an important decision. For the business, this showed that a well-designed digital journey can support autonomy, reduce pressure on traditional channels and strengthen adoption.

The shift goes beyond one feature.
From scanning invoices to tracking reimbursements in real time and checking franchises and deductibles online, the Customer Area increasingly supports the everyday moments that shape a positive customer relationship with their insurer.

Adoption, satisfaction and autonomy

Across the Swiss insurance sector, digital maturity is rising, but the bar keeps moving. Deloitte’s 2025 study on digital insurance maturity found that Swiss insurers score above the EMEA average, while advanced self-service remained an area which the sector can still progress. For Groupe Mutuel, this is exactly where sustained, user-centred design work matters.

A strong digital customer space is not only about moving services online. It helps policyholders manage their coverage with more confidence, without fear of making a mistake. It can also reduce pressure on call-centre teams, limit paper-based interactions and make service more scalable.

The bigger shift is organisational. Together, Liip and Groupe Mutuel made design part of the product team’s everyday practice; strengthening customer confidence, supporting digital adoption and helping teams make better decisions together. Recognition in the ISTQ App Award 2025, where the app ranked among Switzerland’s top insurance apps, is another sign that the experience resonates with the people who use it.