Insurance firms are facing the challenges of ever-changing digital world more than ever. It is crucial to keep up with the times by meeting user needs, offering new products and following the latest trends. Too bad if an antiquated system is blocking your agency from reaching its fullest potential.
That is why we’ll provide you with a fresh perspective on legacy software modernization, so that you agency will no longer feel constrained by the old technology dragging behind. Feel free to check the modern insurance software solutions to boost your company’s efficiency, profitability, and safety through innovative digital transformation technologies.
What Is Legacy Software?
You may often hear a term ‘old’ or ‘outdated, when dealing with the definition of ‘legacy software’.
However, we’d prefer to paraphrase Gartner’s IT Dictionary and define it as a software that is no longer compatible with the new technology and tools you’re using.
As a result, such software is blocking a company, or a business from reaching its best potential by putting a spoke in their wheel. Whether the existing systems are difficult to maintain, support, integrate with other tools, or make the user experience worse – it means one thing only. Such legacy software needs to be updated.
Why Insurance Agencies Really Need a System Update?
Old systems for billing, policy administration, claims and underwriting – are just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to keeping your firm on point.
Nowadays, IT has long become a vital factor influencing the internal and external success of your company. The insurance industry isn’t an exception becoming strongly dependable on technologies.
Still, surprisingly lots of firms are stuck with antiquated tools that both increases the costs and lowers customers’ satisfaction.
That is why, here are the three main reasons why your firm needs an update:
- To Boost User Experience. It’s just obvious. If the majority of your users prefer mobile devices, and your company hasn’t got a user-friendly mobile version of a website. It’s truly bad news. Not to mention, the need for ultimate personalization of the content.
- To Secure Clients’ Data. Working with insurance claims, one needs to have all the data securely protected. So in case your old-fashioned system is easy to be hacked, your clients won’t appreciate the leakage.
- To Meet Business Needs. To have your business thriving you need to meet the market demand that is having scalable and cutting-edge software.
An insurance agency may choose among three options of legacy software modernization that will best suit its requirements:
- Migrate to a modern packaged application
Updating can be quite pricey, so some firms just can’t handle it. However, there’s a solution to replace the existing old system with a three- or four-tier packaged software. So you receive a modern tool for your core operations and save a buck.
- Add new functionality to the old system
If you can’t replace the outdated application altogether, you can modernize it by adding new features (sales tracking, analytics, access and share data, etc.) that are critical to meet the modern needs.
- Migrate to a modern language and runtime environment
This is the most time-consuming and pricey option, though if a mainframe can’t be replaced, and it’s not enough to just add some new capabilities, this is the only solution.
A Three-Step Guide to Legacy Software Modernization in Insurance
- Identify Systems Weak Spots First
Before getting down to modernization itself, one needs to scrupulously examine their system for weaknesses. It will involve architecture audit, code review, and performance testing. Only by identifying the problems, you can outline a strategic plan for the update.
- Proceed With Core Modernization Steps
Generally, there are some essential procedures needed for almost any outdated system. They include refactoring, cloud-based integration, and reverse-engineering. Refactoring is about making the existing system simpler and more systematized.
Cloud-based integration is indispensable these days to keep all the data structured and analyzed. Finally, reverse-engineering involves looking for undocumented features of a software. It sheds the light on the structures and systems in a need of an update.
- Unlocking Endless Opportunities
Each step of modernization will open the doors to the next one by offering endless IT opportunities for your insurance agency.
COBOL Modernization
COBOL is a legacy code language that makes the antiquated systems increasingly costly to support. Companies have difficulty finding relevant IT specialists with experience in COBOL technology. This is because such professionals are in short supply, and they begin to retire.
The COBOL is an old language making it a rare technology. Thus the COBOL skilled workers receive higher salaries for legacy system transformation and database administration. That’s why the cost to support the outdated applications are higher than for modern technologies.
Moreover, with the old technologies, the business can experience difficulty accessing and interpreting data. Without adequate system and data documentation or the proper experience identifying required data, companies’ IT staff will struggle to migrate the data required in a timely fashion, delaying the rollout of new applications.
In a Nutshell
We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies and their workforce with cutting-edge transformative solutions and data-driven insights. Are you and your organization ready to shift the mindsets and get the most out of innovations?
Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business or project can start benefiting from it today!