Managing risk: insurance and indemnification
A case study on a course I designed for small business owners growing into enterprise contracts.
Needs analysis, scripting, visual design, 15 custom interactions and the Rise build. Photo on Unsplash by Signature Pro. Sample companies, people and documents are fictional.
Overview
The brief was broad: teach small business owners how to check for risk. There wasn't much guidance beyond that, so a lot of the early work was figuring out what checking for risk actually looks like for someone about to sign their first enterprise contract.
I did all of it: the needs analysis, scripting, visual design, 15 custom interactions, and the Rise build. I worked with several subject matter experts along the way.
Who was taking it
Small business owners, mostly people looking to grow. They're good at what they do. What they're less sure about is the legal side of running a business: the insurance section of a contract, what a certificate of insurance has to show, and what they're agreeing to in an indemnification clause.
So the course couldn't assume any of that vocabulary, and it couldn't talk down to people who've been running a business for years.
Interactions that work like the real task
I wanted the interactions to do two things. Get learners to take an honest look at where they stand right now, and have them practice the things they'll actually have to do, on documents that look like the ones they'll be handed.
In one, a supplier's certificate sits next to a contract's requirements and you go line by line deciding what falls short. In another, you review a full certificate and find what would get it sent back. The clause decoder breaks an indemnification clause into the pieces you're agreeing to.
Working with the experts
The SMEs knew this material inside out, and I pulled from my own resources too. Their input was mostly technical: limits, terms, and how requirements scale with the work.
The harder part was scope. There was always more they could add, and my job was keeping the course at the learner's level so it stayed usable for someone who isn't an insurance professional.
Try three of the interactions
These are working versions from the course, with the sample companies and documents swapped for fictional ones.
Spot the gap
Go line by line and decide what falls short of the contract.
Would this certificate get sent back?
Review a full certificate against the contract and find what would get it returned.
Decode the clause
Select a highlighted phrase in a standard indemnification clause to see what it means.
Read the insurance terms before you sign. After signing, a change usually means reopening the contract.
How I’d measure it
This is a plan. I don’t have results data from the course that I can share.
By the end, a learner should be able to put together a risk plan for their business: what coverage the work needs, where they fall short, and what to take to their broker. That's what I'd measure.
- Did they make one? A follow-up 30 days after the course asking whether they've written down their own coverage gaps or taken a contract's insurance section to their broker.
- First-time certificate acceptance. Procurement teams already log certificates they send back. Compare suppliers who took the course with those who didn't.
- Where people miss in the interactions. First-try answers in Spot the gap and the certificate review show which lines trip people up, and which parts of the course to rebuild.
The second and third come from data that already exists, so measuring it doesn't create extra work for anyone.