Could you introduce FINEOS and explain the nature of your work, as well as why it has significance in people’s everyday lives?
FINEOS provides core systems for life, accident, and health carriers. We have built market leadership in the employee benefits domain—the protection industry—and today we are leaders in North America. We work with some of the largest group insurance carriers, who sell benefits to employers to protect their workforce. That covers everything from injury, illness, loss, absenteeism, or compliance-permitted caregiving. Increasingly, we are involved on the legislative and regulatory compliance side too. Absenteeism is the trigger for a claim, and we manage the entire process: compliance, injuries, illnesses, payments, wages, even long-term care or death claims. We also cover new business for these carriers, from quotations and underwriting to policy administration and billing. Essentially, we provide the full back-office core system—quote to claim.
Our SaaS-based system replaces legacy platforms, some over 50 years old, with a modern solution that works for small, medium, and very large employers like AWS, IBM, or Walmart. Over the last 10–15 years, we have grown into a leadership position: six of the top 10 U.S. group insurance carriers are our clients, we have more than 60 customers globally, and in North America, 40 carriers use FINEOS. Out of roughly 100 carriers in this space, we cover nearly half, making us the leading provider in one of the last insurance segments to modernize from on-premise green screens to SaaS platforms.
You have described this sector as highly complex, with many companies still reliant on systems that are decades old. What challenges or hesitations do you see when organizations consider adopting modern solutions like yours?
They have not stayed completely legacy—they have modernized the front end with e-commerce and digital platforms, so from the outside they look modern, Amazon-like. But behind the scenes, their core systems of record are still old, transactional, and fragile. These back-ends create layers of technical debt and block real-time interaction with the front end. Carriers have been reluctant to make the leap of faith because of fear and past failures. Many tried other vendors—often platforms built for property & casualty or pensions—and ended up wasting millions on customizations that failed. There are horror stories of projects canceled, forcing carriers back to legacy. That creates a fear factor.
Our advantage is that FINEOS is purpose-built for employee benefits. With over $500 million invested, we have delivered proven migrations, like New York Life Group Benefits Insurance, which runs a $4.5 billion book of business entirely on FINEOS. Success stories like this show carriers an easy bridge to the new world and steadily break down the fear.
Why is it so important for carriers to transition to modern systems? Could you share a concrete example of how a task is handled with and without your solution?
Old systems were built for a world that existed 40–50 years ago. Employment dynamics have shifted—employees now have the power, and benefits are critical to attracting and retaining talent. Employers need to offer packages that remove worries about caregiving, illness, or accidents, and employees expect real-time access on their phones. Carriers must deliver that modern experience both to HR departments and directly to employees.
With legacy back-ends, it is like a Tesla body powered by a steam engine—it still runs, but it is not fit for today.
Legacy systems make it costly to extract data, impossible to do things in real time, and insecure compared to cloud platforms like AWS. Their data is scattered across multiple systems, which cripples AI—since AI is only as good as its data. Carriers with FINEOS, like New York Life, operate from one secure, cloud-based platform. They can roll out new services instantly, leverage data for AI, and provide better customer experiences. Meanwhile, legacy carriers are weighed down by clunky integrations, huge expenses, and mounting risks.
What broader impact do you see artificial intelligence having on your business and the insurance industry as a whole?
AI is having a generational impact, like the internet 20 years ago. Big tech companies are investing heavily in machine learning and agentic models that run on cloud platforms. It is not perfect yet—bad data leads to bad results, hallucinations still occur—but the promise is clear. Over the next three to five years, AI will increasingly take over mundane tasks, freeing people to focus on creative and empathetic work.
Insurance has always been technology-driven—the product is really the claims experience. If claims go badly, the customer leaves. Today, in FINEOS, AI already accelerates underwriting and claims by pulling together documents and medical records, allowing case managers to decide faster and spend more time with customers. That human interaction remains vital—like flying planes, people still want pilots in the cockpit. Regulation also ensures AI cannot deny claims without empathy or fairness. So AI will not replace humans, but it will streamline processes, cut inefficiencies, and enable better service.
It is a generational change: just as people eventually got used to buying shoes online, future generations will embrace AI-enabled insurance.
As a European technology provider, much of your focus seems directed toward the North American market. How do you view this dynamic, and where do you believe true innovation and appetite for adoption are emerging today?
The U.S. is the biggest consumer market in the world, the big shopping mall where everyone goes to sell. It is also extremely innovative, home to the largest R&D labs and a culture that constantly pushes for the “next thing.” Europe and Asia tend to think longer term—about infrastructure, trains, or cities—while the U.S. focuses on short-term consumer innovation. In insurance, the U.S. is about 30% of the global market. So if you are number one there, you are effectively number one globally. Many U.S. companies do not even need passports because their domestic market is so vast. That is why 15 years ago we focused on becoming number one in the U.S. Today, 70% of the benefits market in Australia and all accident claims in New Zealand run on FINEOS too, but those markets are much smaller.
By being U.S.-centric, we stay at the cutting edge of AI, cloud, and innovation. Cloud adoption, for example, began in the U.S., with other countries only following once American vendors built global data centers. In short, U.S. carriers’ ancient back-ends are finally being modernized, and by leading there, we lead everywhere.
