49 states
Where Wellabe is licensed. We updated the premium app its independent agents use.
Since 1929
Wellabe has served policyholders for nearly a century and holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating
$4.25M
Raised by Parallel across pre-seed and seed rounds, with a prototype we designed and built
What we build
Software for insurance carriers and fintech platforms
Quoting tools and renewal dashboards built around how agents actually work. Wellabe's agents had relied on iPremium since before 2015. We modernized it and added a certificate tab that helps them fill out applications correctly.
Quote-to-bind flows and online applications for the policyholder who would rather not call an agent. They should be quick to finish and read like they were written for a person.
Product design for pre-Series A fintech companies. Investors want to click through the product before they write a check, so in fintech the demo carries a lot of the fundraise.
Websites for carriers and MGAs, and for fintech startups, that have to hold up in front of regulators and customers at the same time. The required disclosures go in, and the page still makes sense to someone shopping for a policy.
Quoting engines with guardrails for complex product suites. Product restrictions and state-by-state differences live in the logic, and the agent sees only the fields that matter for the quote in front of them.
Headcount modeling and budget dashboards for finance and HR teams. The Parallel dashboard we designed leads with variance: how today's plan differs from the quarterly and annual plans, in people and in dollars.
Case study
Wellabe iPremium: the premium app for a life insurer licensed in 49 states
Wellabe is a health and life insurance company that has served policyholders since 1929 and holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating. Its independent agents use iPremium to calculate life insurance premiums without doing the math by hand, so applications don't go in with the wrong amount.
The app had been in daily use since before 2015, so breaking it wasn't an option. We refreshed the interface for Wellabe's rebrand and added more life products with updated premium calculations. A new certificate tab helps agents fill out applications correctly. Agents kept working through the whole rollout, and Wellabe has seen fewer application errors since.
See the case study
Case study: Parallel
A prototype that helped Parallel raise $4.25M
Parallel is a workforce planning platform for HR and finance teams at growing companies that have outgrown spreadsheets and HRIS exports. The founders needed a product to show investors, and they came to us.
We designed and built the prototype from zero: a live dashboard of headcount and budget, plus flows for changing a role and tracking approvals. Parallel raised $4.25M across its pre-seed and seed rounds.
See the case study
Why HQ for insurance & fintech
Software that holds up when someone checks the math
Compliance goes in the first wireframe. Disclosures and state rules are part of the design brief from day one. Finding them in legal review a week before launch is slower and costs more.
Built around the agent's day. Agents quote between appointments, often with a client on the phone. Every extra click is time they aren't selling. We cut steps and build the checks into the tool.
Fundraising-ready product design. For an early-stage fintech company, a clickable product can move a raise further than a deck does. Parallel's founders showed theirs to investors and to early users checking whether the core workflows solved the problem.
Years of habits, respected. Wellabe's agents had built their routines around iPremium. We changed it in small steps with feedback from Wellabe's team at each round. Nobody's workflow broke.
Agents shouldn't have to think about the software
An agent sitting across from a client is paying attention to the client. If the premium tool makes them stop and double-check a number, it's in the way. Good insurance software catches the mistake before the application goes in and stays quiet the rest of the time.
A lot of the work is deciding what to leave off the screen. If you're planning an agent tool or rebuilding an old one, tell us about it.
Our work
RISExp
Messenger & My Designer Lab
Revere Health
Show&Tell
Messenger Memorial Maker
Nomi Health
“The way you've handled this is such a testament to why HQ is so damn good.”
Elizabeth Waite
CMO, Collegewise
“This team is insanely reliable.”
Randall Bennett
“These are my favorite vendors.”
Hayden Hill
CMO, Christensen Institute
“As a way to get to a phenomenal product, hiring this team is the best way to go. Overall we're 1000% pleased.”
Austen Allred
CEO, GauntletAI
“There's no doubt in my mind that we picked the right partner in HQ to help us with this.”
Shobin Uralil
CMO, Lively
“If I'm not your happiest customer, I'm willing to fight whoever thinks they are for that title.”
Jeff Allen
CEO, BlueCar
“We feel like HQ has been our secret weapon.”
Jerome Paul
CEO, Spiff (acq. by Salesforce)
Frequently asked questions
Yes. We updated iPremium, the premium calculation app Wellabe gives to independent life insurance agents. Wellabe is licensed in 49 states and holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating. Agents use iPremium to calculate premiums without doing the math by hand, so applications don't get submitted with the wrong amount. On that project we refreshed the interface for Wellabe's rebrand and expanded the app to cover more life insurance products with updated premium calculations. We also added a certificate tab that helps agents fill out applications correctly. For any multi-state tool, our approach is to put the rules that vary by state and by product into the tool's logic. When the tool knows what's valid for a given state and product, the agent can't quote something that isn't, and fewer applications come back for correction.
Yes. We work compliance requirements into enrollment flows from the first wireframe, because retrofitting them at the end of a project is slow and expensive. Insurance enrollment is one of the places where bad UX costs real money, through abandoned applications and through applications that go in wrong and need manual correction. The Wellabe work is a good example. iPremium's new certificate tab exists to help agents fill out applications correctly, and Wellabe has seen fewer application errors since launch. In any enrollment flow, we keep the legal requirements enforced behind the interface. The agent or policyholder filling it out sees a short, clear form, and the rules still hold. That separation also makes the flow easier to explain when your compliance team reviews it.
Yes. We designed and built the Parallel prototype from zero, from product strategy through development. Parallel is a workforce planning platform for HR and finance teams at growing companies. The prototype helped the founders raise $4.25M across pre-seed and seed rounds, from investors including Peak Capital, Night Capital, and founders of Spiff, Weave, and Divvy. In fintech, the demo is part of the fundraise. A deck describes the idea. A working prototype lets an investor click through the dashboard and judge for themselves whether the workflow solves the problem. Parallel's founders also put it in front of early users to check that the core workflows held up.
Yes. Wellabe's independent agents use iPremium to calculate life insurance premiums. We updated the app and expanded it to cover additional life products with updated premium calculations. Wellabe holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating, and a wrong premium on a submitted application is a problem for both the agent and the policyholder, so accuracy isn't optional. The principle behind any quoting tool we build is the same. Show the agent the inputs that matter for this quote and hide the rest. Put product restrictions and state differences in the logic, so an agent can't produce a quote the carrier won't accept. That means fewer calculation errors and fewer calls back to the home office, and agents who trust the number they give a client.
It depends on what you're building. Updating an existing agent tool, like our work on Wellabe's iPremium, usually moves faster than a new consumer enrollment flow or quoting platform, because the rules already exist and the job is to present them better. On a new build, the timeline mostly comes down to how many states and products are involved and how much has to connect to legacy policy systems. A fundraising prototype like the one we built for Parallel can move quickly when both teams agree early on what it has to show investors. We don't quote a timeline from the category alone. We work out the plan with you in discovery and give you a realistic estimate before any production work starts.
Building software for insurance and fintech
Insurance software usually has two audiences. The agent writing a policy for a family wants the quote right the first time, and the carrier needs its product rules followed on every application. We design for both, and we'll tell you where they pull against each other.
Wellabe has served policyholders since 1929, is licensed in 49 states and holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating. Its independent agents have used iPremium to calculate life insurance premiums since before 2015. We refreshed it for Wellabe's rebrand, added more life products, and built a certificate tab that helps agents fill out applications correctly. Agents kept working through the whole rollout, and Wellabe has seen fewer application errors since.
On the fintech side, we designed and built the prototype for Parallel, a workforce planning platform, before any production code existed. The founders raised $4.25M across their pre-seed and seed rounds. In fintech, investors want to click through the product before they write a check.
We've worked with a carrier that has served policyholders since 1929 and a startup raising its first rounds. We run the work differently for each, and we'll say at the start how we'd run yours.
Building something for insurance or fintech?
If it's an agent tool or a prototype for your next raise, we've built one before. Tell us what you're working on.
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