For years, application programming interfaces (APIs) have been the connective tissue of insurance technology. They power everything from licensing workflows to data exchange with partners, distribution platforms, and internal systems. As digital transformation accelerates, carriers are beginning to ask an important question: Is our current API strategy helping us move faster or holding us back?
Modernizing an API ecosystem isn’t about chasing trends or rewriting everything from scratch. It’s about aligning technological choices not just with the needs of your business today but with future goals, and being more flexible, more integrated, and more responsive to change. While most carriers already have strong API foundations, the shift toward modern, RESTful, self-service models is creating new opportunities for efficiency and better developer experience.
Why carriers are rethinking their API strategy
There are two primary forms of APIs seen in modern insurance technology: SOAP, which stands for Simple Object Access Protocol, and the aforementioned REST, which stands for Representational State Transfer. The main difference between the two is flexibility, with SOAP being traditionally rigid but reliable, whereas REST is simple and flexible. In both cases, these APIs serve as a form of mediator between two separate software systems so that they can communicate and exchange data. With SOAP APIs, this exchange tends to be unfiltered, meaning all available data is sent back and forth, whereas REST APIs can be more selective.
Many carriers have relied on SOAP-based APIs for a long time, and for good reason. They are stable, predictable, and deeply embedded in critical workflows. However, they aren’t without their own set of challenges. One primary challenge is that as systems grow more interconnected, the tendency of these more legacy protocols to “send everything all at once” can create friction, especially when development teams want more selective or event-driven access to data.
Several trends of modern business are driving carriers to reevaluate:
- Faster product cycles. Launching new offerings or adjusting existing workflows often requires integrations to move just as quickly.
- Partner expectations. Distribution partners, vendors, and internal teams increasingly expect modern, developer-friendly APIs.
- Operational efficiency. Teams want fewer custom workarounds and more standardized, predictable integration patterns.
- Talent dynamics. More developers today are fluent in REST, JSON, and modern API design principles than in legacy protocols.
These shifts do not diminish the value of legacy APIs; SOAP remains an integral protocol in many use cases. What these shifts do highlight, however, is where modernization can improve efficiency and why revising API strategy may be key for carriers looking to build or maintain their momentum.
What modernizing your API actually means
It can be tempting to frame modernization as a simple technology shift such as moving from SOAP to REST or XML to JSON (which are readable text formats for data files), but there’s far more nuance to such change. The larger strategic question is how your API ecosystem can make integration easier, faster, and more scalable for the people who rely on it.
Modern API environments generally include:
- Granular, resource-based calls that let developers retrieve only what they need.
- Standard HTTP verbs that make usage more intuitive.
- Clear versioning that avoids breaking existing integrations.
- Lightweight payloads that improve performance and readability.
- Better alignment with current tools and development practices.
This evolution is useful for carriers who want to support continuous delivery, real-time data exchange, or a broader set of integration partners while maintaining stability in existing systems.
A developer experience worth prioritizing
Even a powerful API can struggle to gain adoption if it is difficult to use. A modern API strategy places emphasis on removing the friction between developers and the functionality they need.
High-quality documentation, “try it out” capabilities, accessible code samples, and clear client libraries all help teams evaluate and adopt an API more quickly. Self-service features, such as role-based credential management, further reduce the amount of work required to get started.
When developers can understand, test, and integrate an API with confidence, value is realized faster across the organization.
Modernization should not create disruption
One common misconception is that API modernization requires a full replacement of legacy integrations. In practice, the most effective approach is incremental in nature and often results in a hybrid state. Carriers can maintain reliable SOAP-based integrations, introduce RESTful endpoints where flexibility or performance is needed, and expand self-service capabilities to speed up development. This method supports long-term evolution while minimizing operational disruption, since the reality is that many SOAP-based integrations serve vital functions and work well even in modern operations.
How Vertafore views API modernization
At Vertafore, we see modernization as a way to empower customers while respecting their existing investments. This means supporting the integrations they rely on today and offering modern, intuitive, developer-friendly APIs for our Sircon products that make future innovation easier. Our new suite of Sircon product APIs is a major step forward from our current web services, with improvements in performance, security, and flexibility to enhance the developer experience. Our goal is to provide customers with the tools they need to better integrate Vertafore data and workflows into their own services and systems.
That being said, we remain committed to supporting SOAP-and file-based web services to ensure broad support and continued operations. Our focus on documentation, event-based webhooks, self-service credential management, thoughtful REST design, and performance governance reflects what many carriers are aiming to achieve in their own environments. API modernization does not have to be a large, disruptive effort. With the right strategy, carriers can evolve their ecosystems at a manageable pace, improve integration agility, and position themselves for a more connected and efficient future. Stability and innovation can coexist, and a thoughtful approach makes it easier for teams to deliver value while preparing for what comes next.