What the data reveals about insurance's biggest tech decision

The debate is no longer about whether insurance companies need to transform technologically. That ship has sailed. The real question, the one keeping executives at insurers, MGAs, and brokers up at night, is: how?

Build in-house or buy an external solution? Make or Buy?

This choice may look like a technical decision. It is, in reality, one of the most consequential strategic bets an insurance business can make in the years ahead.

A sector under pressure, systems falling behind

The numbers are stark: 90% of P&C insurers say their current technology environment will not be sufficient to meet product requirements within the next 3 to 5 years¹. This is not a pessimistic forecast. It is what product and tech teams are already living every day.

The pressure points are well-known: evolving customer expectations, growing regulatory complexity, margin compression, and the rise of AI as a new operational paradigm. Technology has shifted from a support function to the engine of competitive advantage.

The question is no longer whether to act. It is how to act fast enough.

The case for building in-house

Developing proprietary technology has long been the default in insurance. And the arguments still have genuine appeal.

Control, first. An internally built tool can be shaped around the company's specific processes and priorities, with a roadmap owned entirely in-house. No vendor dependency, no restrictive licensing, no surprise price hikes.

Data ownership, second. Insurers handle sensitive customer data. Keeping full control over where it is stored, how it is processed, and who can access it is a legitimate concern.

Customization, third. Unique features, tailor-made business rules, a user experience designed from the inside out: the idea of a tool that perfectly matches the company's vision is hard to dismiss.

But every one of these advantages comes with a hidden cost that teams tend to discover too late.

Full control over the roadmap also means full responsibility for the entire development lifecycle: maintenance, updates, security, and regulatory compliance. These are significant drains on resources, timelines, and budgets that almost always exceed initial estimates.

Independence from vendors? It often becomes a different, more fragile dependency: on two or three internal developers who are the only ones who truly understand the system. When they leave, the organization is exposed.

Unlimited customization requires sustained R&D investment and the ability to attract top technical talent, in direct competition with companies for whom that is the core business.

In the AI era, this is where the gap becomes hardest to close. Building and maintaining AI capabilities internally demands rare expertise, significant infrastructure, and continuous investment. For most insurance organizations, that is a race they cannot win.

The market has moved. So has SaaS.

A decade ago, buying an external solution often meant accepting a rigid, generic tool that was hard to integrate and slower to evolve than a custom build. That is no longer the case.

The technology landscape has fundamentally shifted. Modern SaaS platforms, built around APIs, offer faster deployment, genuine scalability, and smoother integration with existing systems. Features that once came as costly add-ons — authentication, compliance tooling, reporting, are now standard.

The most mature markets have already reached a verdict. In the US and UK, buying technology is the dominant strategy. 9 out of 12 of the largest American P&C insurers already rely on external software for claims and policy management³.

That is not coincidence. It reflects a straightforward calculation: when specialized vendors invest continuously in innovation, it becomes increasingly difficult, and increasingly pointless, to try to match them internally.

In the AI era, relying solely on legacy proprietary systems is no longer just a disadvantage. It is a strategic liability. The real risk is not losing control. It is being outpaced by more agile competitors who adopt and integrate innovation faster.

What a modern platform actually changes

Let's go through the arguments concretely.

On cost

Legacy core systems cost on average 1.7x more per policy than a modern insurance platform⁴. And 67% of European insurance CFOs believe the complexity of their existing systems is actively holding back efficiency gains⁵. With a SaaS solution, upfront costs are lower, total cost of ownership is predictable, and the hidden costs of internal software development disappear.

On speed to market

Internal development cycles are long, unpredictable, and frequently derailed by resource reallocation or shifting priorities. A platform like Korint enables an insurance portfolio to be configured and deployed in weeks, 10x faster than legacy tools. In a market where launching first matters, that edge is decisive.

On data

This may be where the gap is most significant. Through an event sourcing data model (an architecture legacy systems cannot replicate), Korint generates 50x more usable data to power pricing models and AI applications. Every operation is tracked, auditable, and reusable. That is the raw material of AI in insurance.

On productivity

‍By optimizing business processes, a modern platform can deliver productivity gains of up to 80%, enough to turn unprofitable products into viable operations.

On customization

‍Buying a platform does not mean giving up differentiation. On the contrary, it means building differentiated experiences on a proven foundation, without starting from scratch. Agility without the risk.

The argument that rarely gets made

There is a cost in building in-house that almost never appears in a business case: the cost of attention.

Every hour spent managing a technology infrastructure, recruiting developers, debugging integrations, or ensuring regulatory compliance is an hour not spent on the core business: designing better products, serving policyholders, developing partnerships, building innovative offerings.

Insurance organizations that leverage next-generation platforms consistently outperform peers still relying on legacy systems, with 40% higher productivity per FTE³.

This is not a question of size. It is a question of focus.

So, Make or Buy?

The answer depends on each organization's context. But the data points in one direction: for most insurers, brokers, and MGAs, building in-house is no longer the safest or fastest path to growth.

The promises of Make (control, independence, customization) hold up in theory. In practice, they run into the reality of a sector in accelerated transformation, where the pace of technological change outstrips what most internal teams can sustain.

The real question is not whether you can build. It is whether that is where you want to concentrate your resources and energy, or whether you would rather direct them toward what no one else can do for you.

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Source

¹ Speed to Market, Consulting LLP, 2023
³ IT modernization in insurance: Three paths to transformation, McKinsey, 2019
⁴ Industry source, 2024
⁵ CFO Study, 2024