Almost every premium payment flow I review has the same problem. It isn't too much friction. It's the wrong friction.
Our industry talks about "frictionless" payments as if friction were the enemy. It isn't. Some friction is the reason a customer trusts you with their bank account. The problem is friction that protects a process instead of a person.
So I don't start by asking how to remove friction. I ask one question of every step: Does this protect the customer, or the process?
Both kinds of friction have a price
Get friction wrong in one direction, and you invite fraud. Get it wrong in the other, and you lose the customer at the finish line.
- Fraud targets money in motion. Business email compromise, where criminals hijack or imitate a trusted email account to redirect payments, drove about $3 billion in reported losses in the FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report. Agencies, MGAs, and commercial policyholders moving large premiums by wire are prime targets.
- Impersonation leads the fraud rankings. Of the $15.9 billion in fraud losses reported to the FTC for 2025, scammers posing as someone else accounted for roughly $3.5 billion. The figures aren't insurance-specific, but any insurer with a payment page is exposed.
- Login walls cost completions. Nearly half of adults in a 2025 FIDO Alliance survey said a forgotten password would make them abandon a purchase. FIDO promotes passwordless sign-in, so weigh the number accordingly, but the pattern is familiar.
Friction that earns its place
Some pauses protect the person paying. These are worth keeping:
- Verifying changes to payment details. A new bank account, card or payment instruction is exactly what fraudsters target. A quick check here is protection, not an obstacle.
- Confirming large or unusual payments. One extra screen can prevent an expensive mistake.
- Making autopay cancellation deliberate. One sentence about when coverage lapses can save a policy.
- Confirming who's paying. A parent, employer or agent paying for someone else needs a clear record.
Good friction is rare, explained, and visibly protects the customer.
Friction that doesn't
Other steps protect a process, and customers can feel it:
- Requiring a login to make a one-time payment.
- Asking for a policy number when the customer could be matched another way.
- Accepting a payment method without showing it.
- Sending someone to a call center to change a due date.
- Asking for the same card details every month.
Each exists for a system's convenience, not the customer's.
Running the test
This takes an afternoon and a whiteboard, not a project plan:
- Map the whole journey. Every screen, field and message, from bill to receipt.
- Label each step in one sentence. Who does it protect: the customer, the carrier or a system?
- Keep what protects the customer, and explain why on screen.
- Move carrier checks behind the scenes. Most need nothing from the customer.
- Send system needs to IT. They belong on a backlog, not in front of a policyholder.
Then ask of whatever's left: what would actually break if we removed it? Usually, nothing.
Explain the friction you keep
A verification code with no explanation feels like a hassle. Add "We confirm changes to where your payments come from, so no one else can make them," and it feels like care.
That sentence costs nothing. Leaving it out makes your best safeguards look like bureaucracy.
Every step is a decision
Every step in a payment flow was someone's decision, even if no one remembers why. The goal isn't zero friction. It's friction you could defend to a customer in one sentence.
What's one step in your payment flow you couldn't defend in a sentence? Tell me in the comments.
Sources
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report: business email compromise, 24,768 complaints and about $3.05 billion in reported losses in 2025
- FTC, testimony to the Joint Economic Committee (March 2026): $15.9 billion in reported consumer fraud losses in 2025; imposter scams over 1 million reports and $3.5 billion
- FIDO Alliance, World Passkey Day 2025 survey (May 1, 2025): 47% of consumers will abandon a purchase if they've forgotten the account password (1,389 adults in five countries, April 2025)
