Welcome to the Age of Orchestration
What if rethinking distribution could unlock entirely new revenue streams? Not through brute force. Not by ripping and replacing core systems. But by intelligently coordinating the tech, data, and decisions insurers already have.
In a world where insurance is increasingly expected to be embedded, invisible, and intelligent – orchestration has become more than just a technical buzzword. It’s now a strategic lever. As insurers and digital partners navigate a landscape shaped by evolving customer expectations and ageing infrastructure, orchestration offers a way to harmonise complexity into simplicity. Think of it as the connective tissue between legacy systems, modern platforms, and real-time customer experiences.
What is insurance orchestration, really?
Orchestration in insurance is the dynamic coordination of systems, data, processes, and people to deliver seamless, responsive, and scalable experiences. It’s different from simple integration. While integrations connect channels, orchestration ensures they work together intelligently. It manages workflows, automates decisions, and ensures that each system contributes at the right moment. Victor Grund frames this well:
“Process orchestration isn’t just about technical efficiency—it’s about unlocking new business value.”
In this model, orchestration becomes a way to modernise distribution, personalise engagement, and increase speed to market.
Orchestration works across every layer of the insurance value chain—from customer acquisition and policy binding to billing, servicing, and claims. It centralises control while decentralising execution. This is particularly powerful in the context of embedded insurance, where coverage must be context-aware, real-time, and deeply integrated into other digital services.
Why insurers need it: From monoliths to modular
The insurance industry faces a significant transformation challenge. Over 75% of insurers still rely on systems that are more than two decades old. These systems often consume up to 70% of IT budgets, yet struggle to support modern demands for digital interaction, real-time data processing, and API-first distribution models.
Enter orchestration. By leveraging middleware as the backbone, insurers can bridge legacy systems and modern policy administration platforms. This allows them to unlock new capabilities without a costly rip-and-replace approach. It turns fragmented infrastructure into a flexible foundation, ready to support embedded insurance and real-time responsiveness.
Orchestration acts as a software conductor, directing the flow of information, ensuring services interact seamlessly, and aligning outputs with real-time demand.
What orchestration enables: Embedded, Automated, Invisible
Orchestration is what makes embedded insurance work behind the scenes. It allows insurers and partners to:
- Trigger policies at the point of sale
- Dynamically price based on user behaviour
- Automate claims initiation and resolution
- Maintain compliance across jurisdictions
- Configure new products rapidly without touching core systems
By now, it has been well documented how orchestration empowers insurers and brokers to operate in a platform-driven world without ceding control. It brings structure to complexity, enabling real-time coordination between insurance core systems, digital channels, and third-party data sources.
Middleware-based orchestration improves system compatibility by up to 90% and boosts throughput by 60%. More importantly, it creates a responsive infrastructure where insurers can experiment, iterate, and scale distribution strategies quickly and confidently.
This responsiveness is critical. As customer expectations continue to evolve, driven by digital-native brands and on-demand services, insurers must deliver fluid, context-rich interactions. Orchestration helps deliver these by ensuring that every system, whether new or old, speaks the same language and acts in concert.
Where the ROI lives: Real outcomes, not just buzzwords
This is not just a story about better plumbing. Orchestration delivers measurable impact:
- 30–40% IT cost savings through reduced duplication and automation
- 50% faster time to market for new products
- 99.9% system uptime, ensuring reliability at scale
It also enables a significant uplift in operational agility. Insurers can launch new distribution partnerships in days, not months. They can adapt to market changes, regulatory shifts, and customer needs without rewriting their tech stack.
Orchestration also supports compliance, data security, and governance at scale—automating audit trails and enabling granular permissioning. In an increasingly regulated digital landscape, this control is indispensable.
Who orchestrates the orchestration?
In the age of platforms, insurers are evolving from product providers to ecosystem orchestrators. This shift requires new capabilities and new thinking. Orchestration should be owned collaboratively across business, product, and technology teams.
Kanopi believes orchestration should accelerate, not complicate. With the right middleware and orchestration layer, insurers can rapidly connect with new platform partners, launch and scale their products, and tap into new customer segments—all without needing major infrastructure overhauls. Basically, a dedicated growth engine – minus the costly IT maintenance.
So, where do insurers start?
You don’t have to rip and replace. You just need the right bridge.
Start by identifying friction points in your current distribution workflow. Use middleware to layer orchestration capabilities across claims, billing, and customer touchpoints. Focus on vendors or partners that can offer:
- Protocol translation between legacy and modern systems
- API-first interfaces
- Workflow management and automation
- Security and compliance baked into orchestration logic
Map your orchestration journey in phases. Begin with low-risk pilots that prove value, then scale incrementally. Measure success not just by technical KPIs, but by improvements in partner onboarding speed, customer satisfaction, and product innovation cycles.
Pilot initiatives with embedded distribution partners or new digital lines. The goal is progress, not perfection.
Conclusion: Orchestration is the new distribution power move
Insurance orchestration isn’t just a technical fix. It’s a strategic enabler for a future where products are modular, experiences are embedded, and systems are continuously evolving.
By embracing orchestration, insurers position themselves not only to keep pace but to lead. They gain the flexibility to meet customers where they are, the resilience to scale quickly, and the intelligence to optimise in real time.
At Kanopi, we’re helping insurers and channels co-create this future—one orchestrated interaction at a time. The result? A more connected ecosystem, a smarter distribution engine, and a more responsive insurance experience for all.
About Kanopi
Kanopi is the modular full-stack insurance platform for insurers, MGAs and brokers to rapidly launch and scale insurance products into new channels within a fraction of the time and cost. Kanopi’s platform supports accelerated quote journeys, intuitive end-to-end policy management, and streamlined distribution, eliminating the need to juggle multiple systems or vendors. A one-stop shop, Kanopi simplifies operations and drastically cuts down on the time and resources typically required for product development and distribution.
Take the first step to kickstart your digital transformation journey, download Kanopi’s FREE guide to building a future-focused insurance platform.