Building insurance futures: Why the ServiceNow ecosystem is set to power the modern insurer
– article by Toby Yates
The frame is set Insurers are now looking to re-lay their foundations. Driven by wide-ranging motivations, from overdue M&A integrations through to fundamentally changing risk landscapes, we are almost certainly at a protracted tipping point. This next era will be powered by dramatically increasing intelligence, and this means that we need new architectural views of insurance and how we lay new foundations for its operations. We currently see the following common drivers for change:
• Built around the customer, not just “customer first” thinking. • Policies as data clusters, not static documents.
• Adaptive architecture, not just apps.
• Integrations that go far beyond simple API hook-ups.
• Regulation and responsibility built in, not bolted on.
• Data-fluid and highly adaptive service propositions.
• With new power that is putting rapidly changing underwriting models into the hands of the customer at an accelerating pace. Embedded into their lives and things, and centered on risk mitigation, continuously changing coverage and always fair.
And as a result, we are starting to see insurers demand something different from their tech vendors – and it’s about time.
Why is ServiceNow set up to make this happen? Well, there are a number of reasons. Let us start with the nature of insurance and how complexity can be made simple through different and better operations.
In essence, we turn risk into a price, balancing this equation with investments and ensuring it covers specific losses. And if that were not complicated enough, we proliferate this across ever-increasing distribution channels: • Brokers and agents • Aggregators • Banks • Third-party / white-label partners • Direct to consumer (multi-channel) • Embedded in other purchases
This probably makes insurance seem complicated enough, but let’s add some more key components into the mix.
Insurance is also a set of value chains slowly moving towards ecosystem models. We “integrate” a lot: across government services, credit lookups, repair networks, and on and on it goes. Each requires orchestration back into underwriting decisions and customer and employee experiences, managed within IT systems that are rarely set up to support this hybrid model effectively.
The bottom line is this: insurance is largely about moving data and orchestrating it into outcomes. From a technology perspective, this makes systems of intelligence incredibly important, but arguably systems of outcome even more vital. The theoretically smartest insurer with the weakest ability to convert that intelligence into value is unlikely to win.
“… this makes systems of intelligence incredibly important, but arguably systems of outcome even more vital.”
Equally, insurance needs to be highly deterministic. We must have intelligent systems and models, including GenAI, orchestrated in this way in order to meet ratio targets, regulatory requirements, compliance obligations, legal standards, risk appetites and customer expectations.
ServiceNow is uniquely placed to make this happen and to play a role at the core of insurer operations. In 2025, ServiceNow orchestrated 80 billion workflows. And this year, significant additional capabilities have been added to the toolkit.
An ecosystem to build an ecosystem: For us, there is so much to go at, and we tend to think in business outcome terms first and work back from there. Determining outcomes means making the most of the endless possibilities, utilising capabilities such as:
Agentic AI & Hyper-automation: AI agents that can now proactively orchestrate entire workflows, moving beyond simple task automation to complex decision-making and multi-step processes across departments.
Workflow Data Fabric & Network: ServiceNow Knowledge 2025 introduced advanced connectivity, allowing third-party tools to map data into the platform in real time, enhancing AI-driven insights. Insurance organisations need to derive greater value from all their data – across third parties and siloed systems – ideally without physically moving it.
Proactive Operations: Workflows now focus on reducing service request resolution times and improving IT service management (ITSM) through up to 90% accurate predictive routing and automated, intelligent incident management. This is bread and butter. For us, it also extends to building other aspects of intelligent operations, from proactive complaints management to driving optimal customer outcomes.
Vertical-Specific Solutions for insurers: Enhanced industry-specific workflows for sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing and banking, focusing on optimising and automating specialised operational procedures. Our ambition is to help insurers address issues across the entire policy lifecycle, taking an end-to-end view and building stronger data models that enable new forms of value creation.
In short, the adaptivity of this ecosystem can help insurers move through the tipping point we are in and create organisations that compete on better, faster and more efficient outcomes – not simply on how well they work around IT constraints and legacy cost-driven modernisation. Instead, we must evolve new ecosystem models that are fit for insurance futures. www.calitii.com
