Why your legacy system is the ceiling and how a modern policy administration system (PAS) breaks through it #
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From artificial intelligence-powered analytics and direct-to-consumer sales channels to automated underwriting and self-service portals, discover the technologies redefining competitive advantage in life and annuities and the cultural and organizational shifts carriers need to make them a reality.
This executive roundtable, recorded at ITC Global, reveals the must-have digital capabilities that are simply out of reach for insurers still running on outdated core systems.
Our guest panelists
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Rob McIsaacFormer Executive Vice President, Research and Consulting | Datos Insights (formerly Novarica)
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Valerie Stieler, Moderator
Director, Sales Consulting, Equisoft
Session agenda #
- Customer experience fundamentals in life insurance
- Legacy system challenges and the innovation ceiling
- AI and data analytics across the value chain
- Direct-to-consumer sales channels and D2C strategy
- Digital servicing and self-service portal capabilities
- Automated underwriting and straight-through processing
- Culture, funding, and the innovator's dilemma
What you'll learn #
- The real cost of legacy infrastructure: Why legacy systems create an innovation ceiling, not just technical debt, and how modern PAS unlocks competitive advantage
- AI and data analytics in practice: How AI-powered analytics enable upsell identification, fraud detection, customer benchmarking, and proactive group benefits management at scale
- Building a direct-to-consumer channel: What a successful D2C strategy looks like, and why product simplicity and speed-to-market are non-negotiable for reaching millennial buyers
- Digital servicing without the overhead: Why digital self-service portals are the fastest-growing priority for life carriers and how out-of-the-box solutions close the talent gap
- Overcoming the innovator's dilemma: Why the real barriers to PAS modernization are cultural and organizational, and how leading carriers are using greenfield models to break free
About our expert speakers #
Rob McIsaac, Former Executive Vice President, Research and Consulting, Datos Insights #
"Legacy systems are fine for legacy customers and legacy customer engagement. The real challenge is that insurance companies think about relationships as contracts—not as people. Spanning multiple contracts across lines of business is extraordinarily difficult in legacy environments."
Rob McIsaac is a leading voice in insurance technology strategy, with decades of experience advising life, annuity, and group carriers on digital transformation, core systems modernization, and distribution innovation. As former EVP of Research and Consulting at Datos Insights, Rob brings an unmatched depth of industry perspective—having served as CIO in both banking and insurance, he bridges the gap between technology capability and business reality in ways few analysts can. His research is widely cited by carriers, system integrators, and investors navigating the complexities of PAS modernization.
Olivier Lafontaine, Chief Product Officer, Equisoft #
"The innovator's dilemma is real in insurance. It's not that CIOs lack vision—it's that changing momentum is genuinely hard when the squeaky wheel is always the legacy revenue stream."
Olivier Lafontaine leads product strategy at Equisoft, where he has been instrumental in shaping the company's policy administration and digital solutions for life and annuity carriers across North America. With deep expertise in both back-office modernization and front-office digital experience, Olivier works directly with CIOs and CEOs to understand where insurers are hitting innovation ceilings and how the right technology foundation changes the equation. He is a regular speaker at industry events, including ITC Global, where he brings a practitioner's perspective on what it actually takes to build and deploy modern insurance technology.
Deepen your knowledge: PAS modernization and digital transformation #
Whether you're building the business case for modernization or already mid-implementation, these resources go deeper on the strategies, technologies, and trade-offs covered in this session.
- An executive’s guide to AI in life insurance: Life insurers don’t have to continue managing fragmented systems and manual processes; they can embrace the transformative power of intelligent automation.
- The PAS equation has changed: what insurers need to know about AI-native architecture: AI has fundamentally changed what to look for in a policy administration system. This article compares the traditional foundation-and-scripting model with modern no-code PAS platforms—and what it means for your next core systems decision.
- How modern insurance policy administration systems improve customer experience: Discover how API-driven PAS enables real-time data access, omnichannel portals, and self-service capabilities that reduce call centre volume while increasing satisfaction scores.
- Actionable advice for succeeding in your PAS modernization: A curated collection of articles, case studies, and research covering every stage of the policy administration modernization journey—from building the business case to managing the go-live.
- Why customer experience fails without core system and data modernization: Understand how fragmented data, batch processing, and legacy systems prevent carriers from delivering the seamless digital experiences customers now expect.
- Equisoft/manage: modern policy administration for life, annuity, and group carriers: Explore Equisoft's flagship policy administration system—purpose-built for life and annuity insurers who need to modernize operations, launch products faster, and unlock digital capabilities at scale.
