The European insurance industry is experiencing strong growth and transformation. Last week’s ANIA data confirms the trend: +7.9% in Non-Life and +19.9% in Life insurance in Italy in 2024.
But here’s the real question: is insurance IT evolving fast enough to keep up?
Matching market data with Celent’s recent webinars on IT investment priorities for 2025, one key finding stood out: the gap between market demands and existing IT infrastructures is widening, and the choices insurers make today will define their competitiveness in the years to come.
P&C: digital is here, but what’s Next?
In the Non-Life sector, cloud and SaaS architecture are now the norm, with 47% of insurers planning to shift to SaaS within the next 18 months.
Meanwhile, over 70% of European insurers have already invested in modern policy administration systems, while 60% are upgrading their underwriting rules & workbench.
The goal? Efficiency, scalability, and speed—with systems that are flexible enough to support new business models and digital ecosystems.
Europe is ahead of other regions in this transformation, partly due to strong regulatory and competitive pressures that have accelerated modernization. But there’s still work to do: many insurers are still stuck in a hybrid state, balancing innovation with the weight of older legacy systems.
Life: a sector running at two speeds
Life insurance is seeing solid premium growth across Europe, but IT modernization is lagging behind P&C. Why?
• IT transformation projects are seen as complex and costly: Insurers acknowledge the need to modernize, but budget constraints remain the #1 obstacle for 48% of companies.
• Legacy systems are still deeply embedded: integrating new solutions into existing infrastructures is a major challenge, as well as the huge effort to migrate from old legacy systems to modern ones, making every step of innovation a delicate process which has to be managed with extreme competence
This challenge is particularly evident in Europe, where regulatory complexity and deeply rooted market structures make agility harder to achieve. By contrast, regions like APAC are moving faster, with fewer dependencies on traditional IT frameworks.
So here’s another real question: can European insurers afford to wait? The risk isn’t just falling behind, it’s facing a forced transformation in a few years, with even higher costs and greater complexity.
Open Insurance and IT Innovation: a barrier or a mindset shift?
Another major theme shaping the industry is Open Insurance—where opportunities are clear, but execution remains a challenge.
Most insurers cite security concerns as the biggest obstacle, but perhaps the real challenge is also cultural: are we truly ready for a model where data becomes the core of the insurance ecosystem?
IT innovation isn’t just about technology. It’s about strategic decisions that shape the future of the industry.
The European insurance market faces now a defining moment: bridging the gap between IT capabilities and business growth. The decisions made today aren’t just about the short term, they’ll define the industry’s competitive landscape for the next decade.
