How (Really) to Industrialize Product Launches in Insurance

Two Common Roadblocks Preventing Launches

1. Wanting to Do Everything In-House

The Make vs. Buy debate is often misframed: treated as a matter of principle, rather than as a pragmatic decision.

Wanting to do everything in-house has several negative consequences:

• A mismatch in IT’s missions: maintaining the reliability of the existing system while ensuring the agility of new launches — leading to frustration in IT and impatience in the business.
• Higher costs and longer timelines, since internal teams are not structured for agile launches.

2. Wanting Too Big, Too Fast

In a world where product launches are rare and expensive, it’s tempting to focus on large growth opportunities — the only ones deemed worthy of the big investments launches require.

As a result, attention shifts to stable, mature markets — poorly suited to innovation.

Experimentation is avoided, competitors are imitated, and instead of creating new markets, existing ones are chipped away at.

➡️ Innovation becomes a second-tier priority instead of a regular reflex.

3. Consequence: A Lose-Lose Model

Companies want “guaranteed-success” products, developed in-house by teams already at capacity.

They aim for ambitious results, demand speed, yet without questioning their organization or tools.

This creates a vicious circle:

• Big products are chosen, which “cannot fail”
• Launches are rare and costly, teams are inexperienced, tools poorly calibrated
• The project becomes intimidating, launching products feels like an ordeal
• For the next launch, controls are tightened, processes made heavier, requiring even bigger products to justify the investment

➡️ Result: The harder it is to launch, the scarier it becomes, the more companies avoid launching unless guaranteed success, the less often launches happen…

➡️ And in the end, nothing gets launched at all.

Two Concrete Tactics to Unlock the Machine

1. Stop Opposing Make and Buy

There are now insurance SaaS solutions like Korint.io that allow you to:

• Launch products on a turnkey platform while staying synchronized with your existing system — regaining product agility without starting a complex, heavy project
• Synchronize data automatically via API
• Pick and choose modular, independently deployable components: underwriting, pricing engine, unpaid premium management, broker extranet, etc.

➡️ The right reflex: stop opposing internal vs. external and instead combine both intelligently.

2. Establish a Launch Cadence

Launching a product should no longer be an exceptional project. It’s a skill to be industrialized.

Too often, a new product launch is treated as a rare, complex event, mobilizing exceptional resources and a temporary setup. This approach makes each project heavy, costly, and hard to replicate.

➡️ Conversely, the most agile players build a real launch routine, with regular, predictable cycles.

• Instead of aiming for a “big bang” every 5 years, it’s more effective — and more strategic — to launch 2 to 3 products a year, leveraging modular infrastructure and repeated processes.
• Create a routine and culture where product launches become habitual.

3. The Advantages:

• Teams get used to the exercise.
• IT organizes itself around recurring tasks.
• A clear view emerges on what must stay internal, and what can be externalized.
• Time-to-market drops drastically.

➡️ Innovation becomes a structuring capability, not a gamble.

4. A Few Examples of Successful Deployments

1. Digitization of a Broker Portfolio (€1m–10m)

The challenge: launching 25 business lines with different levels of delegation

Our solution: progressive deployment in quarterly waves, grouped by level of delegation, embedding the habit of product launch

Result: a progressive, de-risked rollout that teams can organize around

2. Creating a New Product

The challenge: regaining product agility without touching the central back office

Our solution: a turnkey platform, integrated with the core system (SSO, reporting, context). IT only manages interfaces, the product is launched in a few months

Result: a replicable process enabling regular new product launches

3. Modernizing a Business Module

The challenge: opening a pricing engine to dozens of distributors via API

Our solution: an autonomous module, with online management and centralized reporting, with no impact on the back office

Result: improved efficiency and broader deployment capability

Conclusion: Launching, a Key Factor of Competitiveness

Each client context is unique, but some practices prove robust. In a market where cycles are shortening, the ability to launch quickly and effectively becomes a critical positioning factor.

Innovation is not an absolute, but it conditions the ability to remain competitive:

✅ Structure launch processes to reduce improvisation
✅ Choose the right tools, balancing internal development and market solutions

Korint enables you to turn launches into a sustainable, measurable, and replicable asset.