Any house with a crumbling foundation is bound to collapse eventually… likewise for outdated core systems. Even “modernized” legacy infrastructures are still based on old setups and ways of doing things, inherently limiting how insurance can interact with the structures and frameworks of today’s (and tomorrow’s) modern technology.
Over-the-hill core systems can’t integrate with digital solutions unless you invest time in complex hard-coding, and these 21st-century programs won’t work as well when backed by systems designed in the last (20th) century. Modern legacy systems’ integration shortcomings also prevent core systems from obtaining essential data from disparate sources or from working in tandem with other solutions in a way that customers simply expect online data to operate. Silos complicate back-end carrier operations and create customer-facing issues — some so significant that they’re driven to shop elsewhere.
Lastly, old infrastructure complicates cloud migration. Applications built for legacy technology can be “lifted-and-shifted,” but they’ll never match the performance of truly cloud-native architecture.