Why Insurers Are Shifting to Greenfield Buildouts in 2025

The insurance industry is driven by changing consumer expectations, technological advancements, and heightened competition, and insurers are exploring innovative strategies to remain relevant in 2025. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and intelligent automation are not only redefining underwriting and distribution but also enabling smarter decision-making and personalized customer experiences. Gartner reports that by 2028, at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions are projected to be made autonomously through agentic AI—a dramatic leap from 0% in 2024—revolutionizing efficiency and responsiveness. 

Amid this technological evolution, the move away from legacy systems toward greenfield buildouts is a strategy that is becoming increasingly popular. This shift allows insurers to harness the full potential of modern systems, enabling scalability, agility, and enhanced customer experiences that align with the demands of a digital-first world. 

The Insurance Industry Is Moving Away from Legacy Systems 

For decades, legacy systems have been the backbone of insurance operations. However, these systems are becoming, or will soon become obsolete. Their limitations include high operational costs, lack of flexibility, and the inability to integrate with modern technologies seamlessly.  

Updating or modernizing legacy systems often involves intricate re-engineering of outdated code and processes, which can lead to significant downtime and resource allocation. Worse, these upgrades sometimes fail to deliver the desired results due to the inherent constraints of the original architecture. This is why many carriers are now turning to greenfield buildouts—starting fresh with entirely new systems built on modern technology. 

Why Carriers Are Opting for Greenfield Buildouts 

Greenfield buildouts are attractive because they allow insurers to break free from the constraints of their legacy systems. These fresh builds enable carriers to design and deploy systems that are purpose-built for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities. 

Key drivers behind this shift include: 

1. Rising Costs of Legacy Maintenance: Legacy systems are expensive to maintain, with costs often escalating as technology becomes obsolete and specialized expertise dwindles.
2. Complexity and Inflexibility: Legacy systems were not designed to accommodate modern data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), or cloud computing. Their rigid architectures hinder the ability to quickly adapt to new market demands or regulatory changes.
3. Demand for Innovation: The modern insurance customer expects personalized products, real-time interactions, and seamless digital experiences. Legacy systems lack the agility to support these expectations, while greenfield buildouts provide a clean slate for innovation.
4. Integration Challenges: Legacy systems often operate in silos, making it difficult to integrate new technologies or third-party solutions, such as advanced analytics platforms or insurtech collaborations. 

The Advantages of Starting Fresh 

Building new systems from the ground up offers numerous benefits that address the shortcomings of legacy infrastructure. Some of the most significant advantages include: 

• Scalability: Modern technologies enable insurers to scale operations effortlessly as their customer base and data grow. Cloud-native solutions, for example, provide the flexibility to expand capacity without incurring prohibitive costs.
• Flexibility: Greenfield systems can be designed with modular architectures, allowing for easier integration of new technologies and quicker adaptation to regulatory changes or market shifts.
• Enhanced Innovation: By leveraging advanced tools such as AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, and predictive analytics, greenfield systems empower insurers to create more tailored products, optimize claims processing, and improve risk assessment.
• Improved Customer Experiences: With a fresh technology stack, insurers can provide real-time, omnichannel interactions and personalized services, significantly enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Future-proofing: Greenfield buildouts position insurers to remain competitive by enabling continuous improvement and evolution. 

Key Takeaways 

Greenfield buildouts are more than a response to the limitations of legacy systems—they represent a pathway to meaningful transformation. By embracing modern technologies and scalable infrastructures, insurers can address immediate operational challenges while positioning themselves to meet long-term opportunities. This includes tapping into vast unmet needs. For instance, the mortality coverage gap is approximately US$25 trillion in the United States, and the global retirement savings gap is estimated to be around US$70 trillion.

To fully leverage these opportunities, insurers must complement greenfield strategies with investments in insurtech (intelligent automation, generative AI, and predictive analytics). Follow our blog series - in the next article, we discuss the technologies that are revolutionizing insurance.