Theres been a shift to the buy side in the build vs. buy debate. Thats one of the findings in IT Spending in U.S. Insurance, a recent study conducted by researcher and consultant Celent Communications (www.celent.com).

Carriers looking for efficiencies in their technology development cycles are trying not to reinvent the wheel, says Matt Josefowicz, Celents senior analyst for insurance. It is not a case of everyone jumping to out-of-the-box solutions, but I think there are more and better solutions now than in the past, he says.

Time to market and the expertise of both consultants and software developers are important reasons for the movement. That just reflects a desire to get to market faster with new products and a desire to take advantage of some of the advances in packaged software and specialized skill sets of consulting firms rather than having an internal staff devote time to creating new systems, Josefowicz adds.