According to the KPMG report “Insurance transformation: The new agenda,” 73% of insurance company CEOs express confidence in their organization’s continued growth. At the same time – as shown by a global survey of more than 250 insurance industry leaders conducted for this report – only 25% of transformation and cost-reduction initiatives in the insurance sector are rated by senior executives as highly successful.
This discrepancy is no coincidence – on one hand, it concerns goals and strategies; on the other, their implementation. And it is precisely in this gap that the answer lies to why some insurance companies grow faster than the market, while others – despite the best intentions – fail to achieve their stated goals.
What most often blocks transformation in insurance companies
The problem rarely lies in strategy. Insurance company boards usually know exactly where they want to go and what they want to achieve – new products, faster sales, better customer service. The challenges arise between the decision and its implementation.
The most common barriers are surprisingly repetitive: rigid IT architecture, where every change – even a minor modification to the terms and conditions (OWU) – means a separate project involving developers and a queue of requests, through which a business idea waits weeks or months before it is implemented.
In other words: insurance companies are not short on strategy. What is often missing are the tools and flexible IT infrastructure needed to quickly translate that strategy into concrete action.
Four traits of effective companies
Our analysis of the insurance market shows that effective insurance companies usually share several common operational traits, regardless of their scale or the segment in which they operate.
Speed of tariff response. Changes to product and tariff parameters are implemented smoothly, without multi-stage IT projects. A company can respond to a market or regulatory signal within days rather than quarters – and it is precisely this response time (time-to-market) that determines competitive advantage.
Automated settlement with the sales network. Commission settlements – with all their complexity arising from volumes, bonus thresholds, and often complicated network structures – are handled automatically. Agents have visibility into their results, know how far they are from the next bonus threshold, and timely settlements translate directly into sales network loyalty.
Multichannel without silos. The same product is available through the agency, direct, and bancassurance channels – with one shared system backbone. Every change that is implemented becomes immediately visible across all channels at once. Customers do not lose their contact history with the company when switching channels, and the company has a full, real-time view of its portfolio.
Product flexibility. New variants, new risk assessment criteria, and new distribution channels are implemented without months-long IT projects. Organizations that can respond quickly to market expectations or regulatory action gain an advantage over those still waiting in line for their IT departments.
These are not four separate initiatives. They are four traits of a well-functioning organization: the ability to quickly turn a business decision into a working solution.
Check whether your insurance company has these four traits
Before starting another transformation project, it’s worth asking a few simple questions:
- Can a tariff change be implemented within a few days rather than months?
- Does your sales network have ongoing, automatic visibility into commission settlements?
- Can a product change implemented in one channel be visible across all the others?
- Can a new product variant be created without a months-long IT project?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no” – it’s worth taking a closer look at that area.
That is precisely where transformation plans most often run into implementation obstacles.
Strategy is not the problem. Execution can be the challenge
Our experience shows that the difference between market leaders and the rest of the pack does not necessarily lie in courage or vision. More often, it lies in execution effectiveness – in whether the organization has the operational agility to turn a board decision into a concrete change in the system, offering, or sales process before the market opportunity passes.
VSoft addresses the challenges in each of these four areas, offering flexible tariff and product management, automated settlement with the sales network, and a single product engine serving all sales channels simultaneously – so that insurance companies don’t have to choose between having a plan and the speed of executing it.
Sources:
KPMG, “Insurance transformation: The new agenda,” 2025 — global survey of more than 250 insurance industry leaders. Insurance transformation: The new agenda
KPMG, “2024 Insurance CEO Outlook,” 2024 — data source on insurance company CEOs’ confidence in growth prospects (survey cited in the report above).
VSoft, MARKET REPORT 2025/2026 The insurance market in Poland: the challenges that will shape the coming years
We are a team of specialists working primarily on projects for the financial sector. On our blog, we share insights from real-world projects: we discuss technologies, analyze implementation approaches, and highlight what works in practice. We create content that helps better understand IT and make informed decisions — both from a business perspective and within technology teams.
