Digitizing Life Insurance: A Conversation with Andrea Caruso, COO of MIB — MIB - July 31, 2025
By Staff Reports - July 31st, 2025
The life insurance industry is steadily overcoming long-standing friction to digital transformation as consumer expectations, regulatory demands, and operational inefficiencies converge with emerging technologies and viable AI-enabled business strategies. While historically slow to modernize—due in part to legacy systems, complex stakeholder relationships, and a risk-averse culture—the sector is now reaching a tipping point. Accelerated by the pandemic and reinforced by changing demographics, insurers are embracing tools that promise both efficiency and enhanced customer engagement.
In this Q&A, Andrea Caruso, Chief Operating Officer of MIB, offers a front-line perspective on how the life insurance ecosystem is responding to these pressures and what role organizations like MIB can play in enabling digital readiness across the value chain.
Here is what she had to say:
Andrea Caruso, Chief Operating Officer of MIB
Q: Andrea, the life insurance industry has traditionally been slow to adopt digital technologies. What are the main factors now driving the push toward modernization?
Andrea Caruso: Several converging forces are compelling transformation. Most notably, there's a growing disconnect between how consumers live their digital lives and how they experience life insurance. People can open a bank account or apply for a mortgage online in minutes, yet the life insurance application process can take weeks—if not longer. That disconnect is no longer sustainable.
At the same time, operating costs are under intense scrutiny, and legacy systems simply don’t offer the flexibility or scalability insurers need. Add to that an aging workforce and talent pipeline concerns, and you’re seeing a systemic push to digitize not just front-end sales tools, but the entire value chain—from data access and risk evaluation to back-office processing and compliance.
Ultimately, it’s not just about efficiency anymore. It’s about survival and relevance in a competitive financial services marketplace.
Q: How did the COVID-19 pandemic influence that urgency?
Caruso: The pandemic removed any illusion that digital transformation could be approached casually or incrementally. When face-to-face interaction became impossible, insurers had to innovate—or pause operations. That urgency catalyzed rapid experimentation with remote sales tools, digital onboarding, and electronic signatures.
What we learned was that the industry could move quickly when necessary. Processes that previously took months to approve were rolled out in weeks. But the bigger impact was cultural: organizations started to reframe digital transformation as a business continuity issue, not just a long-term innovation play. That shift in mindset was critical.
Also, consumers became more comfortable with digital channels. They learned how to meet with financial advisors on Zoom, how to share sensitive documents securely online. That behavioral shift expanded the audience for digitally-enabled insurance products—and created expectations that we now must meet.
Q: MIB is known for its deep roots in fraud prevention and compliance support. How has that mission evolved in a digital-first market?
Caruso: Our mission hasn’t changed, but the way we execute it has evolved significantly. We continue to be the trusted partner for life insurance data—but we’re also enabling faster, smarter workflows that support the digital transformation strategies of our member companies.
For example, our EHR platform gives underwriters near real-time access to applicant medical records. That kind of data access used to require weeks of manual effort. Now it’s happening in hours—or less. But more importantly, we’re not just moving data. We’re structuring it, standardizing it, and enabling it to flow into decision engines. That’s a huge shift from our origins as a backend processor.
We’ve also expanded into areas such as e-signatures and pre-application triage because the gaps in the ecosystem necessitated it. Our goal is to fill those gaps with purpose-built solutions that reflect the regulatory, operational, and compliance realities of the life insurance industry.
Q: On that note, what are the challenges with using off-the-shelf digital signature solutions in life insurance?
Caruso: It’s a great example of where general-purpose tools fall short in regulated industries. Yes, e-signatures are widely accepted now. But in life insurance, the transaction doesn’t end with a signature. You have to ensure proper identity verification, maintain detailed audit trails, integrate with multiple back-end systems, and comply with varying jurisdictional requirements.
When we built our e-signature solution, we focused specifically on the nuances of life insurance workflows. This means making the signature process seamless for consumers while also providing underwriters and compliance teams with the necessary documentation to validate the transaction in the event of a dispute or audit.
This isn’t just about convenience. It’s about preserving trust, minimizing exposure, and ensuring that technology adoption doesn’t create new risks. That’s what “responsibly aggressive” means to us: move fast, but move smart.
Q: Can you talk more about that phrase—"responsibly aggressive"? How does that apply to your transformation strategy?
Caruso: I like to use “responsibly aggressive” as a guiding principle. It means pushing the industry forward but doing so with clear guardrails. We’re not here to be disruptive for disruption’s sake. We’re here to help our customers modernize in a way that protects their business, their clients, and their brand.
That shows up in how we approach product development. We don’t just launch technology and expect insurers to adapt. We build solutions that work within their existing processes—or we provide a roadmap for integration that minimizes operational disruption.
It also means staying tightly aligned with regulators. We engage early and often with industry groups, legal teams, and compliance officers to make sure innovation doesn’t outpace accountability. And finally, it means investing in education and change management. Technology adoption isn’t just a technical issue—it’s a human one.
Q: Integration always seems to be a sticking point. How is MIB helping insurers overcome that challenge?
Caruso: Integration is where a lot of transformation efforts stall. We recognize that most insurers are not starting from a blank slate—they have complex tech stacks, legacy systems, and competing priorities. That’s why all of our platforms are modular and API-enabled. Insurers can adopt them incrementally, plug them into existing workflows, and scale adoption as their capabilities mature.
For example, if a company isn’t ready to fully automate underwriting, we have tools such as eValuate that can assist on the front end to provide accurate preliminary underwriting assessments, even if those cases still need to go through a full traditional underwriting process to be finalized. As a company’s comfort grows, we can help them transition into real-time, rules-based decisioning. The point is flexibility. You can’t force transformation—you have to enable it.
Q: eValuate sounds like a game-changer. What’s the strategic thinking behind making underwriting data available earlier in the process?
Caruso: Traditionally, underwriting decisions happen at the end of a long journey—after the application, after medical exams, after document collection. But if you get to that point and the data doesn’t align with the client’s expectations or eligibility, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time.
Our eValuate platform is about shifting that analysis upstream. By giving advisors and brokers access to key data points earlier—before the formal application—we reduce friction, improve placement rates, and align expectations from the start.
Think of it as prequalification for life insurance. The same way a mortgage broker can tell you what price range you’re likely to qualify for, our goal is to equip insurance advisors with enough insight to make confident, accurate recommendations from the very first conversation.
Q: Are there other barriers—cultural or organizational—that slow down digital transformation?
Caruso: Absolutely. Technology is only half the equation. You also need alignment at the leadership level, buy-in from distribution partners, and a willingness to revisit long-standing processes.
One major barrier we see is “paralysis by analysis.” Some organizations spend so much time evaluating options that they miss the window to act. Others hesitate because they don’t want to disrupt their advisors—or because they fear regulatory pushback. That’s where companies like MIB can play a helpful role. We’ve done the heavy lifting. We’ve built compliant, scalable solutions that mitigate risk and accelerate value.
Q: The industry seems to be moving toward “platformization.” How is MIB participating in that shift?
Caruso: Platformization is the idea that data, tools, and workflows should operate within a shared, interoperable framework. That’s a major theme in financial services, and it’s coming to life insurance too—just a bit more slowly, because of regulatory complexity.
At MIB, we’re investing in infrastructure that connects the dots. That means integrating underwriting data, digital signatures, identity verification, and risk scoring into a cohesive platform that can serve carriers, distributors, and reinsurers alike.
Our partnership with Munich Re is one example. By combining our data assets with their actuarial models and analytics, we can provide more comprehensive risk insights and support more dynamic pricing strategies. It’s a way to bring advanced capabilities to the mid-market and life insurers who may not have the resources to build these systems in-house.
Q: Finally, what does the next 3–5 years look like for life insurance and digital transformation?
Caruso: I think we’re at a moment where momentum is building—and the next three to five years will determine whether that momentum translates into systemic change or isolated innovation. We’ll see continued investment in digital capabilities, but also a sharper focus on measuring ROI and outcomes. What’s the actual impact on placement rates? On cycle times? On advisor productivity?
I also think you’ll see more cross-industry learning. Life insurers are increasingly looking at how banks, fintechs, and even healthcare providers manage digital engagement, data privacy, and user experience. That cross-pollination will raise the bar for what’s possible—and what’s expected.
Ultimately, the companies that succeed will be those that combine smart technology with human insight. Life insurance is still about trust, empathy, and long-term relationships. Technology should amplify those values—not replace them.