The insurance industry runs on processes. Claims intake, adjudication, underwriting, policy servicing, and compliance reporting are all fundamentally process-driven operations. Yet many insurers still manage these processes through a combination of legacy core systems, manual workflows, spreadsheets, and disconnected point solutions that were never designed to work together.
The cost of this fragmentation is measurable. According to McKinsey, adjusters in 2025 spend most of their time on complex and high-stakes claims, while more than 50% of claims processing activities are expected to be handled by technology. The insurance claims market itself is projected to grow from $222 billion in 2025 to $747 billion by 2035, driven by increasing volume, rising customer expectations, and the growing complexity of regulatory requirements.
For insurance CIOs, the question is no longer whether to modernize claims operations. It is how to modernize without ripping out the core systems that underpin the business. Low-code platforms offer a pragmatic answer.
Insurance core systems are among the most entrenched in any industry. Many carriers run policy administration, claims management, and billing on platforms that were implemented decades ago. These systems are deeply embedded in the operational fabric of the organization. They hold vast amounts of historical data, support complex actuarial logic, and satisfy regulatory reporting requirements that have been built up over years.
Replacing them is prohibitively risky and expensive. Failed core system replacement projects are common in insurance, often running years over schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. The alternative, continuing to run on aging platforms, creates its own set of problems: limited agility, poor user experiences, and an inability to respond quickly to market changes or regulatory shifts.
Low-code platforms offer a third path. Instead of replacing core systems, they create an execution layer around them. New workflows, customer-facing portals, and operational processes are built on the low-code platform while connecting to the core system through APIs and integrations. This preserves the stability and data integrity of the legacy platform while enabling the agility and user experience improvements that the business demands.
The claims lifecycle is a prime candidate for low-code modernization because it spans multiple systems, involves numerous stakeholders, and follows rule-based processes that map well to visual workflow design.
First notice of loss (FNOL). The claims journey begins when a policyholder reports a loss. Low-code platforms enable insurers to build multi-channel intake processes including web portals, mobile apps, and chatbot integrations that capture claim details, validate policy information, and route the claim to the appropriate team. Digital FNOL users report satisfaction scores of 871 on a 1,000-point scale, demonstrating the customer experience impact of digitized intake.
Claims triage and assignment. Once a claim is filed, it needs to be evaluated for complexity, severity, and potential fraud indicators. Low-code workflows can automate triage logic based on claim type, amount, policyholder history, and other risk factors, routing simple claims to automated processing paths and complex claims to experienced adjusters.
Investigation and adjudication. Claims investigation involves gathering documentation, coordinating with third parties such as repair shops, medical providers, or legal teams, and making coverage decisions. Low-code platforms provide task management, document collection workflows, and decision-support tools that keep investigations on track and properly documented.
Settlement and payment. The final stage involves calculating settlement amounts, obtaining necessary approvals, and processing payments. Automated payment workflows can calculate amounts, verify banking details, and trigger payments, cutting settlement times from days to minutes while maintaining proper controls and audit trails.
While claims automation often receives the most attention, low-code platforms offer equal value across the broader policy lifecycle.
Underwriting workflows can be modernized to incorporate data from multiple sources, apply risk assessment rules consistently, and route exceptions to the appropriate level of review. Policy issuance and servicing workflows can be digitized to reduce manual processing time and improve accuracy. Renewal processes can be automated to improve retention rates and reduce lapse risk.
The Accenture 2024 Insurance Technology Vision report found that insurers implementing workflow automation reduced policy processing times by 50-70% and decreased administrative costs by 30%. These efficiency gains directly impact the combined ratio, which is the metric that ultimately determines an insurer's profitability.
Insurance is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and any automation initiative must account for compliance requirements from the outset. By late 2025, 23 states and Washington, D.C. had adopted the NAIC's AI Model Bulletin, signaling increasing regulatory scrutiny of automated insurance processes.
Low-code platforms support regulatory compliance through several built-in capabilities. Configurable business rules ensure that every claim follows the appropriate regulatory procedures for its jurisdiction. Audit trails document every action taken within a workflow, creating the evidence trail that regulators require. Role-based access controls ensure that sensitive policyholder data is only accessible to authorized personnel.
For insurance CIOs, the compliance advantage of low-code is significant. When regulatory requirements change, which they do frequently, the affected business rules can be updated visually within the workflow designer rather than requiring code changes in the core system. This agility is critical in an industry where regulatory lag can result in fines, sanctions, or market access restrictions.
This is the central question for insurance CIOs, and low-code platforms provide a clear answer: build new operational workflows on a flexible platform layer that sits around the core system rather than inside it. The core system continues to serve as the system of record for policy data, premium calculations, and regulatory reporting. The low-code platform handles the operational workflows, user interfaces, and cross-system orchestration that the core system was never designed to deliver.
This architectural approach works because it respects the reality of insurance IT. Core systems are not going to be replaced overnight. But the processes that interact with them can be modernized immediately. New digital intake channels, automated triage workflows, and streamlined approval chains can be deployed on the low-code platform while reading from and writing to the core system through APIs.
By 2025, it is projected that 70% of new business applications in insurance will be developed using low-code or no-code platforms. This trajectory reflects a broad industry recognition that low-code is not a compromise solution but a strategic modernization approach that balances innovation with operational stability.
Kissflow provides insurance CIOs with a low-code platform that complements rather than competes with existing core systems. The platform connects to policy administration systems, claims management platforms, and third-party data providers through flexible APIs, creating an operational layer where claims workflows, underwriting processes, and compliance procedures can be designed, deployed, and modified without touching the core.
Where Kissflow stands apart for insurance is in its workflow-first architecture. Every application built on the platform is inherently a workflow with built-in routing, approvals, SLA tracking, and audit trails. For an industry where every process step carries regulatory and financial implications, this design philosophy means that governance is not an add-on; it is the foundation.
Insurance teams can use Kissflow to build custom FNOL intake portals, automate claims triage and assignment, manage investigation task workflows, streamline approval chains for settlements, and generate compliance-ready documentation. IT maintains control over integrations and data security, while business teams design the process logic that reflects how claims actually move through the organization.
1. How does low-code claims automation improve the customer experience for policyholders?
Low-code claims automation improves the policyholder experience by providing digital intake channels that are available around the clock, real-time status tracking, faster processing through automated triage and routing, and more consistent communication throughout the claims lifecycle. Policyholders benefit from shorter settlement times and greater transparency into how their claim is progressing.
2. What is the typical implementation timeline for a low-code claims automation project?
Initial claims workflow digitization projects typically take eight to twelve weeks from design to production deployment. This includes process mapping, workflow configuration, integration with core systems, testing, and user training. More complex implementations involving multiple claim types, jurisdictions, and integration points may take longer but can be phased to deliver value incrementally.
3. How do low-code platforms handle the complexity of multi-jurisdiction insurance regulations?
Low-code platforms manage multi-jurisdiction complexity through configurable business rules that can be customized per jurisdiction without duplicating the entire workflow. A single claims process can incorporate jurisdiction-specific rules for timelines, documentation requirements, and approval thresholds, ensuring compliance across all operating territories while maintaining a unified process architecture.
4. Can low-code platforms integrate with specialized insurance data providers and third-party services?
Yes. Modern low-code platforms support integration with insurance-specific data providers including claims databases, fraud detection services, weather and catastrophe data providers, and medical record systems through REST APIs and pre-built connectors. These integrations enable enriched claim assessments and automated data validation within the workflow.
5. What role does low-code play in fraud detection and prevention within claims processing?
Low-code platforms support fraud detection by incorporating automated validation rules, cross-referencing claim data against historical patterns, flagging anomalies for human review, and integrating with specialized fraud detection services. The workflow can be configured to route suspicious claims through enhanced investigation procedures while processing legitimate claims on an expedited path.
How do insurance carriers measure the ROI of low-code claims automation?
Insurance carriers typically measure ROI through reductions in average claims cycle time, decreases in per-claim processing costs, improvements in customer satisfaction scores, reductions in compliance violations, and increases in straight-through processing rates. Many carriers also track the reduction in IT backlog and the speed at which new regulatory requirements can be implemented as secondary ROI indicators.