IT Tools for Insurance – Part 1

First article in our series on IT tools in insurance

The main families of IT tools in insurance

In insurance, technology is no longer just a support function: it structures the entire value chain. Yet the tools available on the market are numerous, heterogeneous, and often misunderstood. In this first part, we take a look at the main categories of tools that make up the information systems of industry players — from broker software solutions to integrated platforms for insurers.

1. The Core System (Core Insurance Platform)

Also called back-office, core system, policy admin system, or insurance platform, the Core System is the operational backbone of an insurer or a delegated broker.
It covers critical functions such as:

• Portfolio management (System of Record)
• Policy lifecycle management (signature, endorsements, cancellations)
• Pricing and underwriting
• Billing and premium collection
• Subscription and servicing journeys

The “System of Record”, backbone of operations
The Core System is supposed to act as the source of truth for the portfolio. But in reality, this data is often duplicated or scattered, due to the lack of APIs or reliable connectors. The result: legacy data, poorly versioned, difficult to enrich, and rarely accessible for other tools.

The policy admin engine
The system orchestrates all operations on the portfolio. It defines what a policy, a client, or an insured asset is. It creates the policy line in the database at quote stage and processes all lifecycle operations (endorsements, cancellations, etc.), even the most complex ones.

Unfortunately, many policy admin systems are aging, monolithic, and closed, with little or no API support. Hard to evolve, they slow down broker digitalization projects, extend time-to-market, and create strong dependency on the vendor or integrator.

In contrast, Korint offers the ability to launch 100% digital insurance products through an open, modular, and fast-to-deploy SaaS insurance platform.

Underwriting and pricing engines
These technical bricks answer two fundamental underwriting questions: Is the risk insurable? And if so, at what price?

In practice, these engines are still poorly automated, especially for commercial insurance products. Many rules are still managed in Excel files or known only by managers. This lack of formalization hampers scalability, reduces traceability, and prevents pricing optimization.

Yet these engines are often decouplable from the main system. This is exactly what Korint Engine enables: digitizing underwriting without having to overhaul the entire Core System.

Quote engines
These are the interfaces accessible to users: clients, brokers, administrators. They allow the creation, modification, or cancellation of a policy.

These journeys can be developed on top of existing systems, provided those systems are open. This is exactly the promise of Korint Reach: deploying modern, agile, and manageable quotes engines, even in legacy environments.

Billing and payments
This component manages client invoicing and premium collection. It is often linked to the policy admin engine (which calculates installments) but can also be handled downstream, especially when the broker manages collection. In that case, this function may migrate to a brokerage system, to streamline the organization.

2. The Extranet

A common term among brokers, the extranet refers to a subscription and policy management journey provided by an insurer. It allows the distributor to work on the insurer’s portfolio without direct access to the underlying Core System.

For non-delegated brokers (the majority of the market), it is the only available channel. But this model has significant limitations:

• Data remains locked in the insurer’s Core System.
• There are no APIs or real-time synchronization.
• Integrations are very limited, meaning no portfolio monitoring or control for the broker.

Two options remain:

1. Double manual entry: tedious, risky, inefficient.
2. Integration via brokerage EDI flows: far better, but only if the broker’s system can leverage these flows. At Korint, this is native.

3. The CRM

A CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) organizes customer relationships. It centralizes sales information, automates certain follow-up tasks, and creates a client file designed to provide a 360° view.

But very quickly in insurance, a CRM alone is not enough:

• It is not connected to operational management (calculations, billing, commissions, invoices).
• It does not always communicate with extranets, emails, or compliance modules.
• It does not allow real-time portfolio monitoring.

The result: many sales teams work with multiple siloed tools, with partial or unsynchronized information.

That is why Korint Grow integrates CRM and operational management. By eliminating re-entries, connecting journeys, and structuring client data, it enables teams to be responsive, compliant, and performance-driven.

4. The Broker System

The brokerage system is the business tool specific to brokers. It can take different forms depending on the firm’s size and role:

• For small brokers, it can be a simple CRM extension.
• For structured firms, it becomes a real control center: commission management, business inflows, API integration, reporting.
• For delegated brokers, it covers almost the same functions as an insurer’s Core System.

At Korint, we offer a single platform for insurers, wholesalers, and brokers — capable of managing all product types, all distribution configurations, and all delegation models.

This convergence is essential to support fast-growing brokers — the so-called “millionaire brokers” — who aim to gain autonomy and volume. With a single platform, they can industrialize their operations, secure their insurance compliance, and become truly attractive to risk carriers.

5. Specialized Modules

In addition to global platforms, certain modules bring value to specific areas. Examples include:

• Claims: intake, handling, indemnification.
• AML / CFT: indispensable whenever there is delegated underwriting.
• Unpaid premiums: automating reminders and improving recovery rates.

These modules must be integrable via APIs, without recreating a monolithic system. This is the approach taken by Korint, which offers them as on-demand, activatable bricks.

6. And tomorrow: Artificial Intelligence

AI is on everyone’s lips. But to avoid being just a buzzword, two levers must coexist:

1. Concrete AI tools: OCR, copilots, automated agents, document generation.
2. AI-ready systems: exploitable data, open architectures, interconnected flows.

This is Korint’s philosophy: as an AI enabler, we structure the data; as an AI builder, we develop concrete, useful, and immediately operational features for your teams.

Conclusion: a series to decrypt IT tools in insurance

This article is the first in a series dedicated to IT tools in insurance. Here, we provided an overview of the main families that make up the industry’s information systems.

In the next articles, we will go further by analyzing the specific needs of each type of player:

• Insurers and mutuals, facing the modernization of legacy systems,
• Wholesale brokers, seeking scalability and compliance,
• Delegated brokers, who must manage the entire value chain,
• Distributor brokers, whose competitiveness depends on streamlined operations and reducing time-consuming tasks (such as double data entry).

The goal of this series is simple: to help each player better understand how the right IT tools — from the core system to extranets, from CRMs to specialized modules — can transform their performance, compliance, and customer relationships.

‍