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Last week, a life insurance CXO told me something that's been gnawing at me. "We want to launch RILA, but will you be ready?" When asked on timelines they said 2027. It flipped my mind, in one of the hottest markets why would one take 2 years to get a new product out the door.
We dug deeper. They had three options: enhance their current legacy system (which everyone hated), upgrade with the same vendor (still hated), or move to a modern platform. Despite knowing the first two would delay their launch and sink them deeper into outdated tech, that's where they were leaning.
The roadblock? Thirty-plus integrations with their current setup, plus a mounting backlog of IT projects. Most of these connections were point-to-point, hard-coded—many without APIs. I've been in enough of these conversations to recognize the trap they were in.
Leaders are often handcuffed by decisions made a decade ago. The fear of breaking what barely worked was paralyzing their ability to compete for what could work brilliantly.
The irony? This isn't a one-off. It's industry DNA. In an industry built on managing risk, we've become allergic to taking any ourselves. We've created cultures where the biggest risk is being seen taking one. Innovation gets suffocated not by inability, but by incentive structures that punish bold moves and reward perpetual planning
And I see the same pattern with greenfield carriers. Fresh capital, no legacy baggage, infinite possibilities. Yet some lean toward vendors who don't even have the product chassis they need today. Why? Because their target IMO already uses that vendor.
Others make an equally puzzling choice: buying do-everything, tightly integrated policy admin systems. The exact monoliths that enterprise carriers have spent decades and millions trying to break apart. These legacy players learned the hard way that 'all-in-one' means 'can't-change-anything.' Yet here are startups, in 2025, signing up for the same trap because a few pre-built integrations promise a faster launch.
Think about that. Companies with zero technical debt are choosing today's convenience over tomorrow's growth.
I've heard these stories too many times. Whether it's a 150-year-old carrier protecting legacy integrations or a startup worried about their first one, the result is the same: technology constraints dictating business strategy instead of enabling it.
The Real Cost of "Already Integrated"
Here's what "avoiding integration work" actually costs:
- Modern platforms can dramatically accelerate your ability to launch new products and respond to market changes
- The McKinsey Insurance 360° benchmark shows that companies with modernized IT are significantly (40%) more productive than those with legacy IT systems
- Meanwhile, 70% of IT budgets disappear into maintaining these legacy "assets" (according to PwC research).
That RILA delay? In a market where sales grew 38% to over $65 billion in 2024, an 18-month delay means leaving serious money on the table. Forever.
Time for a Reality Check
I get it. Rebuilding integrations is a heavy lift. But maintaining them isn't free either. Every month you're patching, monitoring, and working around their limitations. Hiring new engineers? They're not joining to babysit 20-year-old point-to-point connections.
And for new companies? Starting with constraints because "that's who our partners use" means you're building tomorrow's legacy system today.
The question isn't "How do we avoid integration work?" It's "Are we going to let yesterday's decisions - or someone else's decisions - dictate tomorrow's growth?"
The Path Forward
Here's what forward-thinking carriers are doing differently. They're moving from rigid point-to-point connections to flexible, event-based systems that mirror how modern businesses actually operate.
Think of it this way: Instead of 30 separate phone calls every time something changes, you make one announcement and everyone who needs to know gets the update. When a policy gets issued, upgraded, or claimed, the system publishes that business event once. Every department, partner, or system that needs that information simply subscribes to what matters to them.
The business impact is immediate and measurable:
- New distribution partners: Connect in days, not months. They subscribe only to the events they need—no custom integration projects
- Product launches: Deploy new products without touching existing connections. Your system publishes its events; interested systems subscribe
- Regulatory changes: Update once, propagate everywhere. No more hunting through 30 integrations to ensure compliance
The Uncomfortable Truth
If you've ever said "we can't" to a strategic initiative because of integrations, you already know who's in charge. And it's not you.
Next board meeting, when someone explains why you can't launch that new product or partner with that innovative distributor, ask one question: "Are we making this decision based on what's best for our business, or what's easiest for our integrations?"
In an industry where speed already isn't our forte, can we afford to let our integrations slow us down even more? The data is clear: companies with modern systems are significantly more productive and agile.
Your competitors are rebuilding for tomorrow. You're protecting yesterday.
