April 2019 – Custom building core systems remains uncommon, though instances have increased over the last few years as several carriers embarked on multi-year efforts to build policy, billing, or claims systems. Many others have given serious consideration to build as a viable alternative to implementing a vended solution but have opted to buy.
This brief addresses arguments for and against core custom builds—some of which are legitimate and others of which don’t withstand serious scrutiny. It also outlines the key capabilities IT organizations need to deliver successful custom builds as well as how to evaluate these as part of a maturity assessment. The brief also reviews some risk mitigation approaches like leveraged builds and co-development.
This brief primarily focuses on core systems, though the same concepts apply to any complex custom development effort.
About the Author
Martina Conlon
Martina Conlon is Executive Principal at Datos Insights. She has expertise in IT strategy, best practices, organizational approaches, and technology architecture, and is the primary researcher and author of market-leading reports on agent portals, core systems, business intelligence, and technology strategy. Martina has led dozens of vendor selection efforts, insurer peer benchmarking, IT organizational assessments, and enterprise architecture and roadmap development...
Other Authors
Martin Higgins
Martin Higgins is a Senior Principal at Datos Insights. He has over two decades of experience working in insurance technology, having served as Practice Director for Edgewater Consulting, where he was responsible for the company’s property and casualty business nationwide. He has expertise in technology strategy, core system selection and implementation, Agile transformation and DevOps, business intelligence, systems integration, legacy...