Beyond Build vs. Buy: Why the Future of Insurance Tech Is Continuous Innovation

The insurance industry is at an inflection point. Regulatory shifts, advancing technology, and evolving consumer expectations are reshaping what it means to compete. For carriers, distributors, and advisors, the pressure is undeniable. Consumers expect speed. Agents demand simplicity. Regulators require precision. And legacy systems, once dependable, now slow innovation instead of enabling it.

“Consumers expect buying and administering life insurance to be as easy and mobile-friendly as every other purchase in their lives,” says Carly Fetzer, Solutions Engineer at Bestow. “If someone can buy a car or invest money in minutes from their phone, why should life insurance be different? The carriers who aren’t actively transforming are already behind.”

For carriers trying to navigate this landscape, standing still is no longer a neutral position. It’s falling behind.

Building What the Market Needs, When It Needs It

Innovation starts with listening, and not just to carriers, but to agents and consumers who experience the friction of outdated processes every day. Bestow combines market research with deep industry experience, maintaining a team that’s constantly looking ahead for opportunities.

“We’re building technology for the future direction of the industry, while identifying gaps in legacy tech and processes that we can help fix,” Fetzer explains. “We also listen to what agents are begging for, and we identify experiences that agents and customers like returning to again and again.”

That philosophy drove Bestow’s product expansion at the end of 2025, when the company launched Indexed Universal Life (IUL), Whole Life, and Juvenile Life, products that address clear gaps in the digital insurance market.

“IUL is where agents build lasting relationships, and consumers seek wealth-building tools, which makes them repeat customers,” Fetzer says. “And juvenile life opens up the family protection that’s been missing from modern platforms.”

These products offer carriers vital new revenue streams without depleting internal resources. Rather than forcing carriers to drain capacity, Bestow enables expansion using shared infrastructure. Carriers can broaden their product portfolio and reach new markets using Bestow’s platform instead of their own.

Looking ahead to 2026, annuities are next.

“Annuities are one of the most requested products we hear about,” Fetzer notes. “Advisors want streamlined tools for retirement planning and wealth preservation with the same modern experience they expect from our life insurance products.”

The market momentum is undeniable. Annuity sales in the US broke records quarter after quarter in 2025, and millions of Americans are entering retirement. 

Bestow doesn’t build in a vacuum. The company conducts continual market research, user testing, and usability studies, working closely with clients to develop products collaboratively. The high success rate has built trust that makes it easy for clients to adopt new products and features.

The Platform Advantage: Innovation That Doesn’t Age

For carriers facing the decision of whether to build technology in-house or partner with a platform provider, the traditional “build versus buy” question misses the real issue.

“It’s not just about the initial build,” Fetzer explains. “It’s about maintenance and, more importantly, continuous innovation. Build in-house, and you get one version up and running. But then you’re committed to ongoing development, maintenance, and updates forever.”

Platforms like Bestow deliver continuous innovation as part of the service. When new features launch or distribution gets optimized, all clients benefit simultaneously.

“You get speed now and sustained innovation without the perpetual resource drain of keeping everything current,” Fetzer says.

Building in-house typically means years of development, significant capital investment, and pulling resources away from core business. Bestow can get carriers to market in as little as three to four months in some cases.

“The market isn’t going to wait for traditional timelines,” Fetzer says. “If you have a hot product now, you can’t afford to wait. By the time you launch, there may be a new hot product, and you’re already behind.”

Bestow provides one simple platform that works across direct-to-consumer, agent-assisted, and embedded channels, fundamentally lowering the cost of doing business and freeing up resources for innovation rather than maintenance.

A major differentiator is Bestow’s Evergreen platform, which handles all version updates and upgrades automatically.

“Carriers don’t get stuck in red tape or fall behind on the latest capabilities,” Fetzer explains. “They’re always current without massive reimplementation projects.”

Because the platform is shared, every enhancement benefits all carriers simultaneously. Recent launches include:

• PIN-to-sign that simplifies applications, especially for final expense buyers

• Support for juvenile insurance products

• AI-driven payment retry that prevents lapses and removes administrative burden from agents

• Enhanced full medical underwriting and improved underwriting workbench

“These are things clients may not even realize they need yet,” Fetzer adds, “but once they have them, they can’t imagine going back.”

Results That Validate the Model

Every product Bestow has built has been adopted by a client. Most clients have requested development of additional products as a result of these successes. That track record reflects a results-driven approach, not just feature-driven.

“Our team of underwriters and actuaries meets regularly with carrier counterparts, analyzes true in-market performance, and suggests tweaks to rules, questions, or rates,” Fetzer explains. “We release those changes, check results, and keep that cycle going at a rapid pace.”

One carrier came to Bestow with a goal of doubling their close rate.

“We took their in-market data and increased the maximum face amount to include higher-value policies and introduced additional risk classes,” Fetzer says. “We developed, tested, and released those updates in just a few weeks, which broadened the product’s appeal and indeed doubled their close rate.”

The carrier confirmed those changes would normally take several months. What would typically be a lengthy project was accomplished in weeks.

“That’s the power of a modern platform combined with a test-and-learn mindset,” Fetzer adds.

The Cost of Waiting

Legacy systems and homegrown solutions, however familiar, are likely holding carriers back from the pace required to stay competitive.

“It’s tough work to keep internal systems humming while managing regulatory changes, integrations and demands of distribution,” Fetzer acknowledges. “We totally get that. We were once a carrier too.”

But the reality is straightforward: carriers who wait are watching competitors capture market share with modern experiences they may not be able to match for another three to five years. By then, it could be too late to recapture consumer and agent interest.

“Carriers need to adopt partners and solutions that are truly configurable, flexible, and can keep pace with how fast things are changing,” Fetzer says, “even if it means admitting that your current solution may not be achieving the results you need.”

Bestow’s 2026 roadmap includes major investments in self-service and backend configurability, annuity expansion, enhanced third-party distribution support, and continued underwriting capabilities expansion.

Change Is Difficult, But Worth It

Early in her nearly twenty-year career, Fetzer implemented agency management systems for organizations using Excel spreadsheets and paper applications.

“Change is difficult, and people are always resistant to it,” she reflects. “I would hear ‘who does she think she is, changing the way I’ve done business for 20 years?!’”

But the pattern was consistent.

“Once adoption happens, everything changes for the better, and you can’t imagine how you survived ‘the old way,’” she says. “That is still the truth. Change is difficult, but oh so worth it. Keeping your organization innovative and on the edge of technology will always be an investment worth making.”

The question for carriers isn’t whether to innovate—it’s whether to build innovation as a project that immediately begins aging, or partner with a platform where innovation is the core business, delivered continuously.

The carriers benefiting from that momentum recognize that in a rapidly evolving industry, the ability to stay current isn’t a luxury—it’s a competitive requirement. And they understand that the cost of standing still, in a market moving this fast, is higher than the cost of transformation. 

Find out more

To learn more, visit www.bestow.com.