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Torn-paper collage on a wide navy paper strip: carbon-copy registration forms covered in illegible ballpoint loops, a steel cash box, a rubber stamp and ink pad, a pen, and a phone showing a blank form.

WorkTidepassAliasOct 2024 – Oct 2026

Livev3 shipped

Case study

Taking tourist insurance off paper

A tourist-insurance agency ran every weekend on paper forms and cash, with every name written, then typed again. I designed and built the system that lets tourists register on their phones and get their policy by email.

About this study

This case study is anonymized for client confidentiality. The client is an insurance business, a sensitive financial category, so the client, the location and the product’s real name are withheld, and Tidepass is an alias. The screenshots come from an anonymized copy of the latest version, with a fictional name, place, currency and sample data. The problem, the build and the results are as they happened.

Torn-paper collage on a wide navy paper strip: carbon-copy registration forms covered in illegible ballpoint loops, a steel cash box, a rubber stamp and ink pad, a pen, and a phone showing a blank form.
Client
a tourist-insurance agency
Location
a coastal destination
Product
Tidepass (alias)
Role
A one-person team, from discovery to support
Timeline
Oct 2024 – Oct 2026
Scope
Stakeholder interviews, field study, product design, full-stack build, cloud, payments, long-term support
Stack
  • Full-stack
  • Cloud
  • Vue
  • TypeScript
  • Firebase
Internals
Cloud Functions, a Firestore database per destination, a payment gateway, email, PDF documents
Status
Livev3 shipped
Challenge
Tourists were insured on paper: two queues at every station, signed policy stubs, cash only and every name typed again in the office. Nothing proved a paid tourist was insured. In the busiest weekend on record, nearly 4,000 tourists registered.
Approach
Stakeholder interviews and a field study first, then a system built around the phones tourists already carry. Phase 1 moved registration to the phone. Phase 2 added online payment and policies by email.
Outcome
135,000+ tourists registered since launch, with zero downtime and zero accounting discrepancies. 5–10× faster at peak, and a tourist who pays online needs no agent at all.

The busiest Friday to Sunday in the Phase 1 records (May 2025 to May 2026). Weekend totals from the paper era aren’t on record.

Launched May 2025. Since launch, 3 hours of degraded performance, from a cloud provider incident. Never down.

At peak on paper, a group spent 20+ minutes at the station: 5–10 minutes at the desk and up to 15–20 in the queue. Online, it takes under 2 minutes, a timed average. The ratio is rounded down to stay conservative.

The ask

In October 2024, the CEO of a tourist-insurance agency reached out to me about several pain points in the business. The agency insures tourists who visit a coastal destination, and it ran on paper. The CEO wanted to take it digital.

I was a one-person team from that first conversation. I started with stakeholder interviews, then the CEO invited me to observe the operation first-hand. My task for the day was to understand how the business runs and to find every pain point.

Oct 2024

Observation day

Tourists buy their insurance on arrival, and the length of the stay decides which policy applies. They come by the busload and in tour vans, mostly Friday to Sunday. Midweek is quiet.

Here is what I watched. One person fills in a paper form for the whole group, usually a family. The group queues again to pay, in cash. The agent makes change, marks each pre-printed policy stub day tour or 72 hours, and signs it. Then the next group, at several stations at once, all weekend.

And the day doesn’t end when the last bus leaves. The cash, the forms and the typing all go back to the office.

The operation at the peak

  • Nearly 4,000tourists in the busiest weekend on record
  • Up to 15agents in peak season
  • 2queues at every station
  • 20+ minper group at peak, desk and queue

See note 1See note 3

The paper route

Every problem I found sat at a station. Step through one station below: each step opens its own note. Then switch to Phase 1 or Phase 2 to see what changed at the same spot.

The station model

Illustrative model, not data

One form per group, two queues and cash at every station, and a second shift of work in the office after the last bus.

One station of several

ABCDE1234ROADSTATIONEXITOFFICEINSURERTIDEPASSTIDEPASS[0.45 · 0.24][01] FORM[02] QUEUE[03] CASH[04] STUB[05] HAND-IN[06] AUDIT[07] TYPING[08] INSURER
Sat 07:00
Groups waiting
000
Names to type
0000
Payments with no policy on record
000

Illustrative model, not data

  • Group
  • Payments with no policy on record
  • On record
  • Staff
[01] FormTourist

Fills in one paper form for the whole group: names, birthdays, length of stay

One person wrote for the whole group, so every form was in a different hand, and many were hard to read. If a misread name didn’t match a claimant’s ID, an accident claim got harder.

  • AccuracyHandwriting
  • ClaimsNames that don’t match
Staged illustration, top down: a paper group registration form filled in by hand in ballpoint, one row crossed out and rewritten, beside a ruler, a gray card and a pen.Staged illustration, top down: a paper group registration form filled in by hand in ballpoint, one row crossed out and rewritten, beside a ruler, a gray card and a pen.Illustration
(01/08)

Paper

One form per group, two queues and cash at every station, and a second shift of work in the office after the last bus.

One station of several

  1. 01FormTourist

    Fills in one paper form for the whole group: names, birthdays, length of stay

    One person wrote for the whole group, so every form was in a different hand, and many were hard to read. If a misread name didn’t match a claimant’s ID, an accident claim got harder.

    • AccuracyHandwriting
    • ClaimsNames that don’t match
    Staged illustration, top down: a paper group registration form filled in by hand in ballpoint, one row crossed out and rewritten, beside a ruler, a gray card and a pen.Staged illustration, top down: a paper group registration form filled in by hand in ballpoint, one row crossed out and rewritten, beside a ruler, a gray card and a pen.Illustration
  2. 02QueueTourist

    Queues again to pay

    At every station, one queue to fill in the form, then a second to pay. Every group waited twice, and at the peak a group could spend 20+ minutes at the station.

    • QueuesTwo queues
    • VolumeWeekend surges
  3. 03CashAgent

    Takes the form and the fee in cash, and makes change

    Every payment was cash, spread over several stations, some busy and some quiet. At the end of the day, more often than not, something didn’t match.

    • CashCash at every station
    Halftone illustration of a dented metal cash box beside a stack of pre-printed stubs, not yet marked, held by a yellow clip.Halftone illustration of a dented metal cash box beside a stack of pre-printed stubs, not yet marked, held by a yellow clip.Illustration
  4. 04StubAgent

    Marks each pre-printed policy stub day tour or 72 hours, and signs it

    The stubs came pre-printed with the policy and its coverage. The agent wrote day tour or 72 hours on each one and signed it, all weekend. That signature was the only proof of cover: no system or record backed it up.

    • PaperStubs signed by hand
    • ControlA signature as proof
  5. 05Hand-inAgent

    At day’s end, hands in the cash and forms at the office

    The agents, up to 15 of them in peak season, went back to the office with the day’s cash and forms.

  6. 06AuditSupervisor

    Audits each agent in turn: cash to the cent, documents counted

    The supervisor audited every agent, one at a time: the cash matched to the cent, every policy document counted.

    • AuditOne agent at a time
    Staged illustration, top down: the end of the day in the office, a stack of handwritten forms held with an elastic band, a closed metal cash box, a rubber stamp, an ink pad and a short pencil.Staged illustration, top down: the end of the day in the office, a stack of handwritten forms held with an elastic band, a closed metal cash box, a rubber stamp, an ink pad and a short pencil.Illustration
  7. 07TypingSupervisor (with part-time help)

    Types every name into the system for the insurer

    Every name written by hand was typed again by hand, after the fact. The backlog was enormous; sometimes the CEO hired part-timers just to type. Morale was at rock bottom, worst of all for the people typing.

    • BacklogEntered twice
    Halftone illustration of a tall, uneven stack of loose paper forms, one sheet held by a yellow paper clip.Halftone illustration of a tall, uneven stack of loose paper forms, one sheet held by a yellow paper clip.Illustration
  8. 08InsurerInsurer

    Receives the records once the backlog clears

    Under all of it sat a missing control. A signed stub was the only proof of cover: nothing tied a payment to a policy on record, so no one could show that a paid tourist was insured, or that a day’s headcount was real.

    • ControlNo proof of cover

Phase 1: register on the phone

Live in May 2025. Groups register on one phone on the way, and the agent’s work at the station shrinks to taking payment and writing one code.

One station of several

  1. 01QR codeTour guide

    Hands out the printed QR code on the way

    • QR codes on the way

      The CEO partnered with tour guides and organizers, who hand out a printed QR code. Groups register on the way and arrive ready to pay.

  2. 02PhoneTourist

    Scans it, registers the group on one phone and gets a code

    A short privacy notice and FAQ, a day trip or an overnight stay, then a name and birthday for each person. The phone shows the code, the group, and the stations with their opening hours.

    • Phones they already carry

      Most tourists carry a smartphone, and there’s got to be at least one in every tour van. One phone registers the whole group.

    • Register in parallel

      Groups register on their own phones at the same time, instead of one by one at a station. The registration queue disappeared.

  3. 03StationTourist

    Shows the code at a station and pays cash

    • Cash first, online next

      Phase 1 kept payment in cash at the station. Online payment came with Phase 2.

    • Wi-Fi at the stations

      In case mobile data was a problem, I proposed free Wi-Fi at the stations. The agency installed it.

  4. 04AgentAgent

    Opens the code; the screen shows the group and the fee; processes it once

    One click processes a registration, and no one can process the same code twice. It is recorded against the agent who processed it.

    • An account for every agent

      Each agent signs in with their own account to process registrations, so every registration shows who handled it.

  5. 05CodeAgent

    Writes the registration code on the policy stub

    • One code on the stub

      In Phase 1 the agent writes only the registration code on the policy stub. The details are already in the system.

  6. 06TotalsTidepass

    Updates the audit and the reports as each tourist is processed

    Real-time audit and reports: each processed group updates the agent’s totals and the day’s report at once.

  7. 07CheckSupervisor

    Checks each agent’s cash against one figure in the system

    The cash each agent hands in is checked against the figure the system already holds.

  8. 08ExportSupervisor

    Exports the records for the insurer, each person once

    Nobody types names anymore. Each person is sent once, stamped with who sent it and when.

    “No one has to type the same name twice.”

Phase 2: pay online

Live in May 2026. Register, pay online and get the policy by email, with no agent and no queue. Paying at the desk still works.

One station of several

  1. 01RegisterTourist

    Scans the QR code and registers the group in three steps

    The journey (D) shows each screen.

    See the journey

  2. 02FeeTidepass

    Works out the fee live, then checks it again on the server

    Discounts and surcharges are itemized as the tourist goes.

  3. 03EmailTidepass

    Emails a confirmation: every name and the amount owed

  4. 04aOnlineTourist

    Pays now, online

    Hosted checkout through an online payment gateway.

  5. 04bDeskAgent

    Or confirms a cash payment at the desk in one step

    Most groups still choose the desk. Cash lands in the same audit trail as online payments.

  6. 05ReceiptTidepass

    Emails the receipt with the invoice and the policy attached

    Every registration includes insurance, so every group gets its policy.

  7. 06LedgerTidepass

    Logs every step, updates the reports and matches payouts twice a week

    Anything overdue or missing is flagged.

  8. 07TripTourist

    Goes on the trip. Paying online: under 2 minutes, no agent, no queue

See note 3See note 4

“What can you do?”

After the field study, I sat down with the CEO and the staff for a long meeting and asked every question I had. Then they asked me theirs: “What can you do?”

Going digital was already the plan. How to do it came with little direction, so I had to think through everything: every step of the operation, and where technology could fit into it without slowing the weekend down.

The answer started with the phones tourists already carry. A group could register itself on the way, before it reached a station. That would remove the first queue, and the records would be in the system from the start, so nobody would type them again.

“There’s got to be at least one person in that tour van with a smartphone.”

See Phase 1 in the model

Phase 1 · v1 · May 2025

Phase 1: register on the phone

Phase 1 went live in May 2025 at one destination. Tour guides hand out a printed QR code on the way, and one phone registers the whole group: a name and birthday for each person, then a registration code.

At the station, the group only pays, in cash. The agent opens the code in their own account, sees the group and the fee, and processes it once. Each payment updates the audit and the reports in real time, so the cash each agent hands in is checked against one figure in the system.

We watched Phase 1 at work for a few months and collected feedback. That was enough to decide the next move.

Phase 1, at the station

Staged illustration, top down: a printed QR code card, worn at the corners, beside a phone with its screen off.Staged illustration, top down: a printed QR code card, worn at the corners, beside a phone with its screen off.Illustration
View largerTidepass registration on a phone, step 2 of 3: a card for the first group member with name, birthday and age, and a discount checkbox.
One phone registers the whole group: a card for each person, with a name and a birthday. Today’s screen; Phase 1 asked for the same details.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass registration detail for staff, awaiting payment: the registrant, the trip and group summary, the fee breakdown with itemized discounts, and a Mark paid in cash button.
Today’s agent desk. In Phase 1, an earlier version of this screen showed the group and the fee, and the agent processed the code once.Illustrative demo data

How the day changed

  • The registration queue is gone. Groups register on the way.
  • Names are typed once, by the tourists.
  • At the station, the agent takes payment and writes one code.
  • Each agent’s cash is checked against one live figure in the system.
  • The office typing backlog is gone.

What Phase 1 improved

  • Business agility
  • Data resilience
  • Accuracy
  • Auditability
  • Traceability

Phase 2 · v2 · May 2026

Phase 2: pay online, policy by email

Then I went further. I proposed that the agency take payments online through a payment gateway. They signed up, and I rebuilt the platform around it as v2, built to serve more than one destination. It went live in May 2026, a year after v1.

A tourist registers in three steps and sees the fee add up as they go. A confirmation email lists every name and the amount owed. They can pay online straight away, or at the desk when they arrive. Most still choose the desk.

Either way, once the payment is confirmed, the receipt arrives by email with the invoice and the insurance policy attached. Every registration includes insurance, so every group gets its policy by email, with each insured person named.

The journey, paying online

  1. TouristThe tourist scans the QR code and registers the group in three steps.
  2. TidepassTidepass shows the fee as it adds up, with discounts and surcharges itemized.
  3. TidepassTidepass emails a confirmation: every name and the amount owed.
  4. TouristThe tourist pays online.
  5. TidepassTidepass emails the receipt, with the invoice and the policy attached.

Under 2 minutes, start to finish. No agent, no queue.

View largerTidepass registration on a phone, step 1 of 3: fields for the lead traveler’s name, birthday and email, then the tour dates, starting with a choice of day tour or overnight.
Registration, step 1 of 3: the trip and the lead traveler. One phone registers the whole group.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass fee breakdown on a phone: per-person fees with itemized discounts, a group add-on, a surcharge line and the total.
Step 3: the fee adds up as you go, with discounts and surcharges itemized. The server checks it again.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass registration confirmation email: the registration code, a fee table listing each group member by name, the total owed and a Complete Payment button.
The confirmation email: every registered name and the amount owed, with a button to pay.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass payment page on a phone: the fee table with a discount, a surcharge and an online processing fee, the total, a Pay Now button and the start of the Pay at the Venue option.
Pay now online, or pay at the desk with the code. Most groups still choose the desk.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass payment receipt email beside page 1 of its attached insurance policy, which shows the policy reference, the insured persons and a coverage table.
Once the payment is confirmed, the receipt arrives with the invoice and the policy document attached.Illustrative demo data

A timed average, registering and paying online, start to finish.

Behind the desk

View largerThe same registration after a cash payment, on its Activity tab: registration created, status set to paid, payment confirmed by an agent, and the receipt sent.
After a cash payment at the desk, the activity log shows who confirmed it and that the receipt went out.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass admin dashboard for one day: revenue with a seven-day trend, guest and paid registration counts, and the cash handover by staff member.
The dashboard for one day: revenue, registrations and the cash each agent took, updated as each group is processed.Illustrative demo data
View largerTidepass reconciliation ledger for one month: totals for payments, payouts and what is outstanding, then daily payments marked paid out and gateway payouts marked received.
The reconciliation ledger: twice a week, each payout from the gateway is matched to the registrations it settles.Illustrative demo data

What Phase 2 added

  • Pay online or at the desk, with one audit trail for both.
  • A policy document generated and emailed with every receipt: almost no manual work left.
  • Payouts matched twice a week; anything overdue or missing is flagged.
  • Six health checks a day cover normal running, not only errors, and alert me.
  • Each destination set up automatically: its own database, security rules, indexes and backups.

What it does today

Everything below runs in production. Open a group to see it.

For tourists
  • Register in three steps: the trip, the group, the fee
  • See the fee as you go, with discounts and surcharges itemized; the server recalculates it before anyone pays
  • Accept the destination’s terms and privacy policy, versioned and timestamped
  • Get a suggestion when an email address looks mistyped
  • Find a registration again by code, or by last name and birthday
  • Pay now online, or at the desk with the registration code
Payments
  • Hosted checkout through an online payment gateway
  • The amount recalculated on the server before checkout
  • Payment notifications verified by signature and applied exactly once
  • Cash confirmed at the desk and recorded against the agent, in the same audit trail as online payments
Email and documents
  • A confirmation email listing every registered name and the amount owed
  • A receipt email with the invoice and the insurance policy attached, generated with no manual step
  • Policy documents generated from a template the agency edits
  • Delivery that retries on failure; staff can resend or regenerate from the record as it was issued
  • Delivery tracking: sent, delivered, bounced, opened
For staff
  • Registrations by status, with accent-insensitive search and a full detail view
  • A dashboard of revenue, arrivals, payments and the cash each agent took
  • Reports on demand, from anywhere: financial reports and names lists, as CSV or PDF
  • User and access management in the browser: roles from agent to administrator, and site access
  • Site settings in the browser: fees, discounts, surcharges, policies and the policy template
  • Announcements for staff, and advisories for tourists; the most serious advisory pauses registration
Audit and reliability
  • An activity log on every registration: who did what, and when
  • Reports that update as each tourist is processed
  • A reconciliation ledger: gateway payouts checked twice a week against what was collected, overdue and missing flagged
  • Health checks six times a day on normal running, not only errors, with alert emails for stuck payments
  • An incident log on every critical path, and report regeneration with a discrepancies view
  • Bot protection, rate limits, input sanitizing and file-upload checks
Set up per destination
  • Its own isolated database, created automatically when a destination is added
  • Security rules generated for that destination, so its data stays separate
  • Access scoped by destination: staff see only the destinations they’re assigned
  • Indexes, point-in-time recovery and delete protection, set up automatically
  • Weekly backups, kept for 14 weeks
  • Default settings seeded, with live progress shown in the admin

What changed

The control that was missing is now in place: every payment is tied to a registration, a receipt and a policy, and to the agent or gateway that took it.

We didn’t cut staff; we cut the effort they put in. Morale improved significantly in Phase 1, and a little more in Phase 2. And when the CEO asks for a number, nobody counts anymore: the data is there, anywhere, on demand, to plan how many staff a weekend needs.

On paper, and with Tidepass

On paperWith Tidepass
RegistrationOn paperA paper form per group, in one person’s handwritingWith TidepassEach group registers on one phone, on the way
QueuesOn paperTwo queues at every station: one to register, one to payWith TidepassOne queue to pay, or none for online payers
NamesOn paperRead from handwriting, then typed again in the officeWith TidepassTyped once, by the tourists themselves
PaymentOn paperCash only, change made at the stationWith TidepassPay online, or at the desk
PolicyOn paperA pre-printed stub, marked and signed by hand; no record behind itWith TidepassA policy document generated and emailed with the receipt, on record
Back officeOn paperA backlog of names to type for the insurerWith TidepassNo re-typing: the records are already in the system
AuditOn paperEvery agent audited in turn, documents counted by handWith TidepassReal-time audit and reports, updated as each tourist is processed
Cover proofOn paperOnly a signature: no way to show a paid tourist was insuredWith TidepassEvery payment tied to a registration, its receipt and its policy
Staff effortOn paperA second shift of counting and typing; morale at rock bottomWith TidepassThe same team, far less effort; morale up in both phases
ReportingOn paperCounted by hand whenever someone asked for a numberWith TidepassOn demand, anywhere: data to plan staffing and run the business

By the numbers

  • 135,000+tourists registered since launch
  • Zerodowntime since launch
  • Zeroaccounting discrepanciesChecked in daily, weekly and monthly audits since launch.

Since launch

  • Operational
  • Degraded

Bars illustrative

See note 2

Faster, and no re-typing

Time per group, by group size

  • On paper
  • Paying online
  • Queue at peak

On paper20+ min at peak

Paying onlineUnder 2 min on average

Illustrative shape, not data. On paper, the time grows with the size of the group. Paying online, it still grows, but much less.

An estimate: the tourists registered since launch, times an average of 30 seconds to type one handwritten record.

See note 3See note 4

Paying online

  • Under 2 minfrom scan to paid, paying online
  • 0agent steps when a tourist pays online
  • 2 → 0queues for a group that registers and pays online

See note 4

Still running

“Launch was day one, not the finish line.”

I’ve supported the platform without a break since May 2025. I tested v1 on local emulators, which can’t reproduce real network traffic or live payment and email services. From v2 on, every release is rehearsed first on a full copy of production. v2 and v3 shipped without interrupting service, and no v1 record was lost.

Support means more than fixes. Since v2 went live, reconciliation runs across destinations, and health checks six times a day confirm that payments and statuses run normally. When something needs attention, they email me.

v3 shipped in October 2026: a redesigned admin with light and dark themes and a rebuilt dashboard, reports and ledger; a redesigned guest app; fixes from a full system audit that tighten payments, privacy and access; and an upgraded runtime.

Release history

  1. v1May 2025

    Live · single-site launch

    Shipped

    Phase 1. Phone registration with a code, an account for every agent, live totals per agent and export to the insurer. Cash at the station.

  2. v2May 2026

    Multi-tenant rebuild

    Shipped

    Phase 2. Online payment, generated policy documents, a reconciliation ledger, health checks, user and access management, and automatic setup for every destination.

  3. v3Oct 2026

    Redesign and hardening

    Shipped

    A redesigned admin and guest app, a rebuilt dashboard, reports and ledger, fixes from a full system audit, and runtime and dependency upgrades.

Continuous support since launch. Two major updates, both shipped.

Something still running on paper?

Work with me

Tell me what you’re building and where it stands. I take on new products, rebuilds and long-term support. I’ll reply by email.

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