Microservices - Innovation for Insurance

If you have been involved in the digitalisation of insurance services, you will probably be familiar with the term ‘microservice’. Many well-known Internet companies – Amazon, Twitter, Netflix and Uber, for example – have built their platforms using this model. The success of these companies has meant that this technology has received a lot of attention. It also offers the insurance sector many new opportunities and can trigger innovations across all business sectors. Therefore, we have put together a four-part article which deals intensively with this topic. In the first part, you will learn all about the basic features of microservices.

What is a Microservice?

A microservice is a “small” Internet-based service which delivers a very specific business function. This could be, for example, an order process, a payment process or the creation of an insurance policy. For each of these tasks, you could use your own stand-alone microservice, but despite its independence, the application would still be able to communicate with other microservices. There are special interfaces for accessing individual services which facilitate data exchange. Microservice architecture is the antithesis of monolithic programs where all functions are closely intertwined and so cannot be accessed and retrieved independently.

Speed of Maintenance and Other Developments

When you use microservices, you can take full advantage of features such as high-speed maintenance and flexible adaptations. If a monolithic program needs additional functionality, the process is usually complex and expensive to implement. And this is also the case if you need to fix a bug. Since all areas of the program are related, a small change can affect the functionality of all the software. However, microservices remain independent. So if an adjustment is required, the task is much easier to accomplish, which means you can innovate faster and yet enjoy lower investment costs.

Thi article was first published on LinkedIn.