Insurance companies are no longer competing only on price. Customers now expect instant quotes, seamless digital claims, and personalized coverage. Experiences they’ve had shaped by banking, retail, and travel. At the same time, regulators are tightening requirements around transparency and resilience, while insurtechs and forward-leaning incumbents are capturing market share with more agile, data-driven models. Against this backdrop, nearly 90% of insurance executives1 now name artificial intelligence as a top strategic priority, yet only 26% of companies2 have managed to scale adoption across the enterprise. The barrier isn’t vision. It’s infrastructure. Technical debt consumes up to 40% of IT budgets,3 slowing every update, launch, and integration. The real question facing insurers today isn’t whether to modernize, but how. Build a proprietary system from scratch? Or buy a modern SaaS platform that evolves with the industry? And that choice is less about technology than it is about control, cost, speed, scalability, and risk. These factors will determine who leads in the era of AI-driven insurance. The Five Dimensions of the Decision When insurers weigh whether to build or buy a modern platform, the debate often gets framed in technical terms. But at its core, it’s a business risk calculation. Five dimensions consistently rise to the surface: control, cost, agility, scalability, and risk. 1. Control Building a proprietary platform gives carriers the ultimate level of control. Every workflow can be tailored to fit unique processes, and there’s no need to compromise with vendor roadmaps. For some, that level of autonomy feels essential. But full control comes with a catch: you also own every future update, patch, and integration. Over time, what looks like freedom can become a burden, locking carriers into cycles of technical debt. Buying, on the other hand, means working within a vendor’s framework. The tradeoff is less autonomy but far greater agility and access to ongoing development. 2.Cost The economics are stark. Building demands massive upfront capital, plus ongoing maintenance and the hidden costs of every upgrade. For many carriers, those investments become sunk costs long before the system delivers value. Buying shifts the model: subscription-based pricing spreads expenses predictably, lowers total cost of ownership, and lets carriers benefit from shared innovation. In risk terms, buying reduces exposure to budget overruns, while building can spiral into a runaway spend. 3. Agility The ability to pivot quickly, launch new products, and respond to changing market and regulatory conditions depends on how easily your systems and people can adapt. Building internally often takes away that flexibility. Long development cycles tie up technical talent and divert focus from initiatives that driver greater business value. Buying, by contrast, preserves agility. Modern SaaS platforms deploy quickly, deliver continuous updates, and free internal resources to focus on higher-value priorities like product design, analytics, and customer experience. 4. Scalability Scaling a homegrown platform is a constant exercise in infrastructure management: expanding servers, retooling integrations, and navigating complexity as the business grows. And the effort doesn’t stop at technology — it also increases labor costs and compounds technical debt as teams spend more time maintaining the system instead of improving it. Buying, especially with multi-tenant SaaS, means elastic scalability with platforms that expand and adapt as your needs evolve. True scalability isn’t just about growth; it’s about resilience and future-proofing. SaaS providers gather real-time feedback from many clients, enabling innovations that a single organization could never match on its own. That built-in innovation and flexibility gives you room to grow without overhauling your core systems. 5. Risk Ultimately, the decision comes down to risk. Building carries the risk of obsolescence, high dependency on in-house expertise, and exposure to technical debt. Buying shifts much of that burden to the vendor, where security, compliance, and innovation are shared across the client base. The real risk lens is forward-looking: the platform you choose today will shape your ability to adapt tomorrow — to new regulations, shifting customer expectations, and the accelerating role of AI across the insurance value chain. A modern foundation turns that adaptability into a strategic edge; without it, innovation remains experimental. When Building Makes Sense, and Why Buying Makes More When it comes to modernization, there are carriers who can justify building. They’re typically global players with deep engineering resources, highly unique product lines, and the patience for a multi-year return on investment. In these cases, control may outweigh the costs and risks. But even then, success depends on disciplined governance and a willingness to carry the long-term burden of maintaining proprietary systems. For most insurers, the calculus looks different. Buying a modern SaaS platform delivers faster time to value, continuous upgrades without disruption, and built-in compliance and security. Just as important, it shifts resources away from system maintenance and toward the business priorities that matter: Sharper underwriting. Faster claims. New customer experiences. Ultimately, your risk profile is what determines the right solution for your organization. Building locks you into higher cost volatility, longer timelines, and greater exposure to technical debt. Buying reduces that exposure, increases agility, and provides the AI-ready foundation insurers need to compete in the future. Want to dig deeper? Each executive views this choice through a different lens: The CIO through integrations. The CFO through cost predictability. The COO through efficiency. The CEO through growth. Our guide, From Legacy to AI: The Insurance Platform Modernization Playbook, explores these perspectives in detail and offers stakeholder-specific talking points to help build alignment across the C-suite. References 1. Risk & Insurance. Insurance Industry Accelerates AI Technology Adoption. 2. BCG. AI Adoption in 2024: 74% of Companies Struggle to Achieve and Scale Value. 3. McKinsey & Company, Aamer Baig, Sven Blumberg, Arun Gundurao, and Basel Kayyali. Breaking technical debt’s vicious cycle to modernize your business.