How InsurTechs Can Build Offshore Teams That Scale

InsurTech companies are built to challenge the way insurance has traditionally worked. They make it easier to quote, bind, service, assess risk, process claims, connect with customers and move information through an industry that has never lacked for complexity.

Getting a platform to market is a major accomplishment. Keeping pace once that platform starts gaining real traction is a different kind of work.

The product has to keep evolving while the company manages the demands that come with actual use: customer questions that reveal where the experience is unclear, carrier integrations that require more attention than expected, claims or underwriting workflows that do not behave quite like they did in the original product map, and data that becomes more valuable and more difficult to manage as volume increases.

For many InsurTechs, this is the point where growth stops being only a product story. It has now become a question of whether the organization has enough depth around the product to support what it has built.

“The conversation is often framed as a hiring problem, but it is usually more complicated than that,” says Tom Sheridan, Co-Founder of ECLARO. “A growing InsurTech may need more people, certainly, but it also needs people who can understand the platform, work within the business, and take real ownership of the work around it.”

“A small internal team can carry a company a long way, particularly in the earlier stages when everyone is close to the product and can make decisions quickly,” he continues. “Eventually, though, the same people are being asked to build the next release, respond to customer needs, support implementation, manage data, solve operational issues and maintain the quality that helped the company earn its early credibility. Adding people does not automatically solve that problem.”

The organization needs to decide which work needs permanent context, which work requires close collaboration, and where additional capability will make the core team more effective rather than simply more crowded. That’s a big lift with that other lifting going on in a growing company.

The Work Around the Technology

Insurance technology does not operate in a vacuum. As a platform grows, the work around it grows too: testing and refining releases, supporting users, managing data, handling integrations, and ensuring that digital workflows hold up in real insurance environments.

That work often crosses product, technology, operations and customer-facing teams. A change designed to improve underwriting or claims can have consequences elsewhere in the process, for example, which is why InsurTechs need people who understand both the platform and the business context around it.

“AI adds another dimension to the work,” ECLARO Co-Founder Paul Sheridan says. “As more insurers incorporate AI into underwriting, claims, risk management, and operations, teams still need to understand the outputs, manage exceptions, maintain sound data, and ensure the technology supports the company’s standards and workflows. AI can accelerate parts of a process, but it does not eliminate the need for people who understand how the work fits together.

“As technology becomes more sophisticated, context becomes more valuable,” he continues. “A tool can automate a step, but it cannot replace the people who understand how that step connects to the rest of the business.”

That is why talent planning cannot stop with engineering headcount. Growing InsurTechs also need the quality, data, implementation, support, operational and insurance expertise that helps a platform work reliably once it is in the hands of customers and partners. The question is, where do you turn to bring that all together?

What Makes Offshore Teams Useful

For technology companies, offshore talent has become one of several practical ways to build capacity as the business grows. It can give an organization access to specialized skills, provide more flexibility than local hiring alone and create room to add support around a product without overextending a small internal team.

How that offshore talent is structured matters just as much as where it is located.

Some companies choose a managed-services arrangement, where a provider takes responsibility for a defined function or set of outcomes. That can work well when the work is standardized and the company wants the provider to manage the people, process and day-to-day delivery.

For many companies, however, the limitations become clearer once the work requires closer collaboration, deeper product knowledge or the flexibility to adjust as priorities change. The provider may rely on a standardized delivery model, shared resources, and its own established processes, leaving the client with less direct involvement in who does the work, how the team operates, and how closely it can align with the company’s systems and day-to-day decisions.

“A dedicated-team approach serves a different purpose,” Tom Sheridan says. “The offshore professionals are recruited specifically for one client and work as a true extension of that client’s organization. They use the client’s systems, follow its processes, work the hours the business requires, and develop familiarity with the product and the people around it. Rather than handing work to a provider and waiting for it to come back, the company remains directly connected to the team and the work.

“ECLARO’s ECAPTIVE model is built around this customized, dedicated-team approach, with teams structured according to each client’s roles, workflows, culture and preferred level of operational involvement.”

That distinction is especially important for a growing InsurTech. Product priorities change. Integrations create questions no one saw coming. Customer feedback can reveal issues that affect product, operations and insurance workflows at the same time. Work like that benefits from people who know the platform and understand why the details matter.”

“The problem with offshore talent is not distance. The problem, when an engagement is not built correctly, is disconnection,” says Paul Sheridan. “If offshore professionals are treated as a separate resource pool, without the context, systems access, communication and accountability of the internal team, their value will always be limited.”

The value of a dedicated team builds over time. The team learns how the business works, becomes more familiar with the product and its users, and develops the judgment to recognize when something deserves attention before it becomes a larger issue. That is very different from simply adding more hands to a project.

“A dedicated team should know more over time, not have to relearn the business every few months,” Paul adds. “That is where the real value begins: when the team understands the product, the workflow, the customer expectations and the standards the business is trying to protect.”

LEARN MORE: THE KEY QUESTION TO ASK BEFORE BUILDING AN OFFSHORE TEAM

Why the Philippines Fits This Model

Philippines talent is not a new idea in global business. Companies have been building teams there for years across technology, financial services, business operations and specialized professional functions. What often changes for leaders once they explore the market seriously is their understanding of the depth available and how much choice they have in defining the team they want to build.

READ MORE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO OUTSOURCING & OFFSHORING IN THE PHILIPPINES

An InsurTech may be looking for a dedicated group of software engineers. Another may need QA professionals, data and analytics talent, business analysts, project managers, implementation specialists, or insurance professionals with experience in underwriting, claims, policy administration, submissions, renewals or compliance. Some companies will need one specialty, others will build a team that spans several functions. The important point is that the Philippines gives them access to a deep and varied talent market, rather than forcing every requirement into the same local-hiring approach.

“The Philippines offers real depth across technology, business operations, customer experience and insurance support,” says Paul Sheridan. “But location by itself is never the strategy. The strategy is building the right team around the work and giving that team the structure to succeed.”

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That range matters because an InsurTech’s needs rarely remain fixed. A company may expand its engineering capacity today and later decide it needs data support, more QA coverage, project leadership or people with deeper insurance-process experience. Or it may continue building in one core function as the product, customer base and roadmap evolve. A dedicated team in the Philippines gives the company the ability to make those choices without having to re-create its talent strategy every time priorities shift.

“Over more than two decades of building teams in the Philippines, we have learned that the value is not simply access to talent,” says Tom Sheridan. “It is the ability to find people with the experience a client needs, structure the team around the client’s way of working, and give that team the time, systems and direct connection required to become a durable part of the organization.”

Building a Team Around the Business

Cost is part of any hiring conversation, and it should be. Like any business, InsurTechs need to make thoughtful decisions about where they invest as the company grows. But the most useful offshore conversations do not begin with a rate card. They begin with the work that needs attention and the kind of team that will make the rest of the business stronger.

For one company, that may mean adding QA before product releases start putting too much pressure on a small engineering team. For another, it may mean bringing in data talent before information becomes harder to manage, or building more implementation capacity as new carrier and distribution relationships come online. A better cost structure can make those decisions easier, but the point is not simply to spend less. It is to give the business enough support in the places where it needs it most.

“Cost matters, but reducing cost is not the same as building value,” says Tom Sheridan. “The more important question is what having the right team in place allows the company to do. Does it give your engineers more room to build? Does it help you move faster without letting quality slip? Does it let you take on an opportunity that would otherwise stretch the team too thin?”

“That is the thinking behind ECAPTIVE,” he continues. “We build dedicated offshore teams in the Philippines around the way each client needs to work: the roles, systems, workflows, schedules and level of involvement that make sense for the business. We support the employment, facilities, technology and administration behind the team, while the client remains closely connected to the people and the work every day.”

The decision, then, is not simply whether to add headcount. It is whether the company is building the capabilities it will need for the next stage of the business, and whether its team structure gives those capabilities a real chance to take hold.

“The conversation should not begin with, ‘What work can we send somewhere else?’” Paul Sheridan says. “It should begin with, ‘What capability do we need to build next, and what kind of team will help us build it well?’”

Every InsureTech has those kinds of questions and more. And the more you ask, the more you’ll find that the Right People are the Answer.