Developing a Scalable, White-Label Insurance Report Tool

Manulife Financial needed a scalable, customizable tool to support its affinity clients—plan sponsors like Engineers Canada—who sell insurance products through association-branded microsites. The goal was to create a Personalized Insurance Report (PIR) tool that could generate customized reports tailored to the needs of each sponsor while capturing valuable user information.

This tool required:

• A flexible platform that allowed Manulife to customize questions, responses, and branding for each sponsor.
• Seamless alignment with Manulife's overarching brand identity despite limited access to brand assets.
• A user-friendly microsite that engaged visitors and converted leads effectively.

1. Building a Scalable WordPress Platform
   
   1. I chose WordPress as the foundation for the PIR tool because of its flexibility and scalability. I architected it to be multi-tenant, which allowed Manulife to easily spin up new, co-branded microsites for each plan sponsor. Each site could have its own customized questionnaire, report outputs, and branding, all managed from a central platform.
2. ‍Reverse-Engineering the Brand
   
   1. Due to internal silos at Manulife, official brand assets were unavailable. I meticulously reverse-engineered Manulife's brand identity by studying their public-facing materials. I recreated their typography, color palettes, and UI patterns from scratch to build a cohesive and on-brand interface, ensuring a seamless user experience even without formal guides.

• Customizable Experience: Delivered a flexible PIR tool that allowed Manulife to customize reports and microsites for each plan sponsor, enhancing sponsor satisfaction and user engagement.
• Brand Cohesion: Successfully recreated and extended Manulife's brand identity across the PIR tool and sponsor microsites, ensuring a consistent and professional experience.
• Scalable Solution: Built a WordPress platform capable of supporting multiple sponsors, making it easy for Manulife to expand the tool to additional affinity clients.

This project demonstrated that resourcefulness is as crucial as resources. Lacking official brand assets could have stalled the project, but the process of reverse-engineering the brand led to a deeper understanding of its core principles. It proved that you can achieve brand consistency through meticulous observation and a systematic approach, delivering a polished product even in the face of internal corporate silos.