(Bruce F. Broussard Jr. is vice president, business development and strategic relationships with Insurity.)

The traditional application-centric approach to core legacy replacement in insurance has long been a mix of modern systems, data conversion, and policy migration at time of renewal. The advanced configuration capabilities offered with modern systems has certainly improved project success rates, but many of the major challenges and risks remain. Replacing the old application with the new offers little long term architectural benefit since both share essentially the same component and integration footprint.

Perhaps it's time to change the status quo. Rather than continue with the traditional application centric approach, a data first approach may be a better way to modernization; resulting in both reduced risk and cost, and a future proof IT architecture.