Ambitious Insurer Blog

Let’s be honest — 2025 was quite the year for insurance technology. If any core system was pretending to be “modern,” but couldn’t truly keep up with the future, AI came along and called its bluff. 

We watched as core systems and insurance tech stacks relying on taped-together point solutions and manual workarounds hit the wall. They scrambled to cover up their shortcomings and inefficiencies with AI point solutions and even more workarounds, which are often costly and ineffective due to siloed, isolated data that can’t deliver the real-time insights and operations insurers need to deliver scalable, AI-driven experiences.

The digital deadweight could be seen for what it was, and the industry finally admitted what CIOs and COOs have whispered behind closed doors for years — we can’t innovate on a broken foundation.

If 2025 was the year of the reset, 2026 is the year of the rebuild.

Forget half-measures and shiny portals masking outdated core technology. If insurers want to compete next year — and stay relevant the year after — it’s about rebuilding from the core out to be truly intelligent and efficient, which is what we’ll see happening in 2026.

1. Core Transformations Aren’t Optional Anymore

Across all lines of business, insurers realized that both ‘legacy’ and ‘modern legacy’ core systems are fundamentally ill-equipped for modern technology, and now liabilities. These systems were architected on outdated, monolithic principles, and they were never designed for API-first distribution, dynamic product configuration, governed AI, cloud elasticity, or continuous delivery.

For example, as customer expectations grew, and volatility in climate risk and capital markets increased, weaknesses of these current systems became glaring. It didn’t matter how much lipstick you put on them, the outcome was the same: slow product development, limited data flow, high integration cost, and a consistently poor customer experience.

What now?

Insurers are waking up to a new reality: chasing operational efficiency through process automation alone isn’t enough. It never was. The real move is from an inside-out, tech-first model to an outside-in, customer-driven operating model. That means ditching rigid, policy-centric architectures in favor of data-fluid, AI-ready core platforms that evolve at market speed and deliver real value at every customer touchpoint.

2. Core Systems Are the Key to Unlocking Functional AI

In 2025, GenAI taught insurers that data intelligence is fundamentally worthless if your systems can’t feed the right data to the right places at the right time. AI needs the right data and context to operate correctly — without the right data, AI can’t be “blamed” for not delivering on expectations. 

Legacy core systems can’t enable this in the way future-proof and data-fluid core systems like EIS OneSuite^TM can.

In 2026, though, the insurers with core systems who can handle it will make AI fully operational, and reap the benefits: increased operational efficiency, customer-centricity, and improved distribution. We’re not talking about merely sprinkling AI on top of underwriting or claims. Instead, it’ll move into the bloodstream of insurance operations, and be embedded, explainable, governed by design, and traceable across every workflow.

Imperative:

For insurers, seeking marginal efficiency gains with AI isn’t the goal anymore. Ambitious insurers will shift to making sure AI goes deep, with operating model redesigns that start with customer journeys, contextual intelligence, and connected data.

If a core system can’t orchestrate AI agents, handle real-time data fluidity, and support explainability by design, it’s not just falling short, it’s actively holding your business model back.

3. Continuous Underwriting and Real-Time Risk Intelligence Take Center Stage

Static models can’t keep up with a world that changes by the minute. In 2025, insurers faced the hard truth: the archive-and-retrieve approach to data is obsolete. Data is no longer something you store and reference later. It’s a live, strategic asset powering real-time decisions, customer engagement, and regulated AI at scale.

What now?

Insurers need systems that treat data as living intelligence. That means shifting to event-driven core platforms that:

• Ingest continuous signals
• Recalculate exposure dynamically
• Orchestrate AI-driven decisioning in real time

Only with this kind of architecture can insurers move from absorbing losses after the fact to preventing them before they happen. It’s about precision pricing, proactive risk mitigation, and real-time portfolio steering—all embedded directly into workflows.

4. Trust Now Has Technical Requirements

With the push to use AI for business impact and customer satisfaction, a natural skepticism occurs around “machines” knowing too much, so trust is no longer about “we promise.” It’s about showing your receipts — to stakeholders, regulators, and customers.

In 2025, new regulations and real customer skepticism forced insurers to build systems that prove how decisions get made.

So if your core system can’t give you the following, your AI strategy won’t just be about closing functionality gaps, but also about making sure your core system can help you meet emerging (and changing) government expectations:

• End-to-end data lineage
  
• Explainable AI logic behind delivered outcomes
  
• Auditable workflows
  

A modern core system should give your teams and regulators a clear view into how decisions are made, where data flows, and what logic is behind every outcome. 

5. Climate Volatility is Leading the Way in Reshaping Risk Assessment

In 2025, climate volatility, rising fraud complexity, and increasing operational pressure exposed the limits of legacy, policy-centric systems.

What insurers now need is a more intelligent, adaptive approach to risk. Unified data orchestration, embedded fraud detection, advanced claims automation, and predictive resilience modeling are required so all systems relating to risk assessment can work together, not in silos.

Modern platforms must support:

• Real-time ingestion of climate data and IoT telemetry
• Integration of satellite imagery, fraud analytics, and operational AI
• Governed, auditable workflows with human oversight

6. Group Benefits Are Evolving Into Intelligent Wellbeing Ecosystems

Employees expect personalized, portable coverage that adjusts to life changes. At the same time, employers want flexibility for next-generation benefits design, and traditional, outdated core systems can’t keep up.

Because of this, insurers need cores that drive outcomes, not just manage products and policies. They need to have a system that supports personalized journeys, connected data flows, and real-time adjustments based on life events. Benefits should evolve with the individual — whether they’re switching jobs, changing work patterns, or hitting major life milestones.

The value isn’t in the product anymore. It’s in the continuous, connected experience — powered by cloud-native architecture, API-first design, and real-time data orchestration — that responds instantly and intelligently to the needs of every user.

7. Pet Insurance: The Industry’s Secret Innovation Lab?

Pet insurance is evolving fast. Rising veterinary costs, increased pet humanization, and expectations for digitally enabled care are pushing the industry beyond reimbursement models toward proactive wellbeing ecosystems.

But this shift isn’t easy. There’s no standard coding across veterinary services, and costs vary widely. This makes underwriting, pricing, and product design even more complex than human health insurance.

To compete, pet insurers need core platforms built for:

• Ingesting real-time data from wearables and vet diagnostics
• Integrating with vet, nutrition, and behavior networks
• Dynamically adjusting pricing and coverage based on lifestyle and health data
• Coordinating partners across digital ecosystems

This is where future-proof platforms like EIS OneSuite shine. With a core system like ours, insurers have the power to turn fragmented data into connected, personalized care journeys, not just run-of-the-mill claims processing. 

Final Word: 2026 Will be a Business Model Reset

Successful insurers in 2026 and beyond won’t be the ones frantically bolting on AI solutions in the name of efficiency alone. They’ll be the ones with an eye on the long game, and taking strategic steps with their core systems to not only support the AI capabilities of today, but those of the future too. 

Check out our full 2026 outlook here, or book a call to learn more about what EIS OneSuite can do for you.