EML

EML manages workers compensation and personal injury insurance claims for Australian organisations. It is a mutual, it works under state schemes, and its people deal with an injured worker, the employer, the broker and the treating provider on the same file. The Sydney head office sits behind a national operation. The website has to speak to all four of those people without sending any of them to the wrong place.

Most people arrive at a claims manager's site at the worst moment of their week and cannot tell which door is theirs. The first screen answers that. Four cards sit under the headline, one each for workers, employers, brokers and providers, described in plain words. A Claims button stays in the header on every page and never moves.

Below that, the site explains the scheme before it sells anything: a plain answer to what workers compensation is, a guides and tools library with videos, checklists and state legislative updates, and a mental health resource centre for psychological injury. The numbers appear once, near the foot of the page: the years behind the mutual, the headcount and the number of people returned to work.

This was a design engagement rather than a build. We handed over the page designs, the component set and the colour and type system: near black, two navies, a sky blue and white, with the audience cards colour-coded so a returning visitor can find theirs by colour alone. Every layout was drawn for desktop and for phone, because claims get checked on a phone.