Scalable Insurance-as-a-Service Platform

About the Client

A leading South African insurance and financial services provider, the client is a diversified group that offers a wide range of products including commercial, personal, and life insurance. Known for its innovative approach to the market, the company sought to modernise its core technology stack to maintain its competitive edge and improve operational agility.

The Challenge

For years, the client’s commercial insurance operations were powered by a complex network of legacy systems. While reliable in their time, these systems had become a significant business constraint. The outdated technology was not only expensive to maintain, but also required a limited pool of specialised skills that were becoming increasingly difficult to find.

Most critically, the legacy infrastructure severely hindered the client’s ability to innovate. Launching a new insurance product or making a change to an existing one was a slow, labour-intensive process. Seeking to future-proof their operations and accelerate their speed to market, the client recognised the urgent need to modernise their technology stack. Having previously worked with Runninghill on other successful projects, they turned to us to help navigate this complex and mission-critical transformation.

The Solution

Runninghill partnered with the client to design and build a new, flexible, and scalable Insurance-as-a-Service platform. The solution was built on a modern technology stack chosen specifically to address the client’s core challenges of agility and sustainability.

• Angular NX Monorepo: Leveraging Angular, the client’s approved front-end language, the team established an NX monorepo. This framework allows for the easy sharing of reusable components and code across different brands and product lines. This approach significantly reduces development time and ensures a consistent user experience, enabling the client to launch new branded products faster.
• Dynamic Form Builder & Headless CMS: To empower the business and reduce reliance on development teams, the solution incorporates a dynamic form builder and a headless CMS. This allows non-technical users to build new screens and update page content on the fly, without requiring new code deployments. This directly addresses the client’s need for faster time-to-market and operational agility.
• C# Backend Services: The backend was developed in C# to provide a robust foundation that seamlessly integrates with the client’s existing services and data sources, ensuring smooth data flow and reliability.

This solution provides the client with a modern, modular foundation that is both easier to maintain and faster to build on, setting them up for a more agile future.

The Process

The project involved a large, multi-disciplinary team from both Runninghill and the client. Using a Scrum methodology, the teams worked collaboratively in focused sprints to tackle complex tasks, from finalizing the end-state technologies to understanding the configurability boundaries of the system. This collaborative approach ensured that the final solution was not only technically sound, but also aligned with the client’s long-term business goals.

The Results & Impact

• Enhanced Speed to Market: The new platform’s flexible architecture and reusable components will enable the client to drastically reduce the time and effort required to launch new insurance products and services.
• Reduced Operational Costs: The move away from a legacy system will lower maintenance costs and reduce reliance on a shrinking talent pool with niche skills.
• Empowered Business Users: The integrated headless CMS and form builder gives business teams the power to make real-time content changes and build new forms without needing a development team.
• Future-Proof Technology: The modern, scalable stack provides a robust foundation for future expansion into other product lines and a platform for continued innovation.

Looking Ahead

By partnering with Runninghill, the client has successfully laid the groundwork for a modern, agile insurance platform. The project has fortified their infrastructure, paving the way for continued innovation and efficiency. Looking ahead, the partnership remains strong, with discussions already underway for Phase 2 to expand the platform to other product lines within the company.

About Runninghill Software Development

Established in 2013, Runninghill Software Development is among South Africa’s fastest-growing BBBEE Level 2 companies within the Information Technology Sector. With over 50 full-stack developers specialising in finance, banking, fintech, and more, we help companies design, build, and ship amazing products.

We are passionate software developers who deliver world-class solutions using the best tools in the industry. We focus on technical team augmentation, consulting, and agentic solution design, and we partner with the best design agencies so we can focus on what we do best: technical excellence.

Our services include:

• Technical Consultation: We partner with your business to identify opportunities, solve complex challenges, and design strategic technology roadmaps that drive growth and digital transformation.
• AI-enabled Technical Team Augmentation: We provide skilled developers and technical experts who integrate seamlessly with your existing team to accelerate project delivery and fill capability gaps.
• Agents as a Service (AaaS): We design, build, and deploy intelligent AI agents that work autonomously within your business processes, creating a digital workforce that handles complex tasks while you focus on strategy.

FAQ’s

1. Why was modernising the legacy system so critical for the client?
   Modernising was essential to address the high costs and maintenance challenges of the old system. The legacy infrastructure also limited the client’s ability to innovate and respond to new market demands, hindering their speed to market for new products.
2. What is the difference between team augmentation and technical consulting?
   Team augmentation means we add developers directly into your team to extend capacity or bring in specific skills. Technical consulting means we work with you at a strategic level to solve architecture, scalability, or process problems. Some clients need both. Knowing when to use each helps improve speed and outcomes. For more on these models, see our services.
3. How quickly can Runninghill’s augmented teams start delivering value?
   Because we use skilled developers from South Africa who are used to working in modern workflows, and because we build quality and modular design into what we deliver, you can expect meaningful contributions early. Feature work, bug fixes, or UI tweaks often happen within the first few sprints. And over time, the system becomes easier to maintain.
4. What does “Insurance-as-a-Service” mean in this context?
   It refers to a new, flexible platform that provides the core technological components and services an insurer needs to quickly launch and manage different insurance products. The platform is designed to be configurable and scalable, allowing the insurer to adapt to present and future market needs.
5. How did Runninghill’s solution empower the client’s business teams?
   By integrating a headless CMS and dynamic form builder, the solution allows non-technical business users to directly change website content and build new screens. This removes bottlenecks and enables them to make quick updates without needing to rely on the development team.
6. Why partner with Runninghill in South Africa?
   You get talent that is technically skilled, smart at solving hard problems, and used to operating in high-standard environments. Our developers train deeply in technical skills, learn best practices, and are supported by mentorship and a culture of quality. We deliver augmentation, but we also help clients build lasting platforms; not just quick wins.
7. What was the biggest challenge in developing this platform?
   The biggest challenge was building a highly dynamic system from scratch while coordinating a large number of cross-functional teams. This required a clear strategy, careful planning, and a strong understanding of the technology stack to ensure the new system would effectively bridge the gap between complexity and function.
8. What’s next for this project?
   The project is an ongoing partnership. We are currently in discussions to expand the platform’s capabilities into new product lines, building on the successful foundation that has already been established.