Magento Benefits for the Insurance Industry

An insurer gains with Adobe Commerce, the platform formerly known as Magento, when it needs to sell simple policies online, offer self-service to its policyholders and quote more complex products without always depending on an agent. The platform provides a catalog, customer accounts, quotes, secure payments and integration with the CRM and ERP, while the core policy system keeps its role.

It is ten at night and an independent professional is comparing auto insurance on her phone. She wants to know what each plan covers, what requirements she needs and roughly how much it would cost, before deciding whether it is worth calling an agent the next day. She enters an insurer's site, finds a form that asks her to leave her details and wait for a call, and closes the page. Three tabs over, another company shows her the catalog, the requirements and a preliminary quote in two minutes. The first insurer did not lose a sale that day. It lost the chance to be considered, which is harder to recover.

That scene sums up the commercial challenge of the insurance industry. No industry is exempt from technology, and at some point all of them must turn to it to manage, facilitate and automate processes and make the customer's relationship with the organization friendlier when asking for information, products or services. The question for an insurer's leadership is not whether to digitize, but which part of the journey to digitize first, with which platform and how to do it without weakening the role of the agent, which remains central. This use case examines the role that an eCommerce platform such as Adobe Commerce can play, whether the insurer serves end consumers or operates in the B2B market.

Why would an insurer consider an eCommerce platform?

Adobe Commerce has a robust module for catalog and product management. It is used by well-known companies and brands around the world, which value the maturity of the platform both in the market and in the management and automation of processes, making the user experience friendlier and faster. There is a lesson in this for any executive. It is not always better to build the administration from scratch or develop it in-house, because it often generates more cost, demands more time and loses functionality that a mature platform already solves.

The insurance industry grows steadily and expands its range of products and services, and it is transforming because of the need for greater efficiency, automation and a better customer experience. Unlike other sales models, the insurance sector requires customizing policies, managing recurring payments and handling complex quoting systems. An eCommerce platform offers useful pieces for this, such as self-service portals, customer accounts, digital catalogs and quote workflows, along with scalability that allows growth without sacrificing operational efficiency.

The literature on insurance distribution points in the same direction. In a study on the multi-access revolution in insurance sales, published in 2020 with mainly German data, McKinsey described that one in two customers was already combining channels in 2019 and that the share of exclusively offline customers would fall from six in ten in 2012 to just over two in ten in 2024. The same study qualifies the picture honestly. Although 84% of respondents used digital steps in their journey, 55% could not imagine buying insurance online, and nearly half valued the quality of service and the advice of a trusted agent. The message for leadership is clear. The future is not a digital channel that replaces the agent, but a journey in which the customer researches, quotes and buys through the channel they prefer.

The Costa Rican insurance market as an example

The Costa Rican context illustrates well the opportunities and particularities of the sector. In the country, licenses are not granted solely for life insurance activity, so companies are non-life insurers or mixed insurers, which combine life and non-life. Licenses are granted by insurance category, with personal insurance (life, income, accident and health), general insurance (property) and mixed. According to the analysis by ICX consultants, that categorization is not consistent with the OECD's life and non-life segments, and personal insurers in Costa Rica have a broader scope than life-only insurers, so those operating in the personal segment are considered mixed.

Non-life insurance dominates the market. According to the same source, it accounted for 85% of gross premiums written in 2017, and the share of life insurance has been growing since the market opened to private participation, although from a very low base. Among the non-life insurance found in the market are auto, home, commercial, medical expenses, surety (bonds) and home fire insurance. More recent data confirm the dynamism of the industry. According to figures from the General Superintendency of Insurance (Sugese) reported by Delfino.cr in February 2025, premiums grew 10% in 2024, consumers could choose among 819 products and premiums represented 2.70% of gross domestic product, compared with 2.41% in 2020. A market with so many products and growing penetration rewards whoever makes it easy to compare, understand and buy.

What can a customer do on an insurer's site with an Adobe Commerce store?

The main objective of implementing a platform of this type is to meet the needs of a customer who wants to be more connected with companies, speed up processes, have information at hand and not necessarily depend on an advisor or agent to make a formal request, or simply to learn preliminary information about the insurer's services and products.

In practice, the customer can register an account as a user, manage their preferences and enter their address. They can view the product and service catalogs, request quotes, complete forms and pay online. They can also find the insurer's branches and check, on the spot, the requirements needed to apply for the type of insurance they prefer. Each of these actions replaces a call, an email or a visit, and frees staff time to handle cases that do require human judgment.

Quotes deserve special mention. Adobe's documentation describes negotiable quotes in Adobe Commerce B2B, a flow in which a company buyer requests to negotiate the price from their cart, the assigned representative adjusts quantities and discounts, and both parties iterate until they reach an agreement, always tied to a company account. Imagine an insurer that sells group health or fleet policies to companies. The human resources manager of a midsize company can open their account, put together the request, receive a proposal from the executive and accept it without exchanging fifteen emails. The agent keeps the negotiation, but the process leaves a trail and shortens timelines.

Which service processes can be automated

Basic customer service processes can be automated so that service staff can devote themselves to more specific tasks. ICX consultants highlight three fronts.

The first is contract rules. Commerce platforms make it possible to manage an insurer's contracts with a company, assigning owners, configuring terms and expirations, administering approved conditions and even generating reminders for expiration or the next payment. For an insurer, the value lies in anticipation. A timely reminder prevents a policy from lapsing through oversight and reduces the loss of customers who do not renew simply because nobody reminded them.

The second is the digital insurance catalog. Not everything is digital and the agent still has a very important role, so a catalog integrated with the platform's product catalog makes it easy to show, from a mobile phone, a desktop or a tablet, the benefits and conditions of each product, without the need to invest in high paper costs. For the agent, it is a sales tool. For the customer, it is a consistent source of information that does not depend on who serves them.

The third is online payment. Many insurance contracts must be handled through agents because of their complexity, and are registered later on the platform, but there are self-issued insurance products that can be enabled directly. Because of the security and volume of transactions, these products should not be hosted on platforms that do not guarantee scalability, mission-critical operation and security in transactions and customer information. Adobe Commerce has a secure platform for payment processing, integrated with the insurer's or banks' gateways. Even so, the project must be validated with the security and compliance teams, and with the requirements of each country's regulator.

What benefits come from implementing the store on Adobe Commerce

The value of the platform for an insurer comes down to eight capabilities that reinforce each other. User experience is the first, because it defines whether the customer completes or abandons the journey. Integrations with the ERP and CRM are the second, because they connect online sales with customer management and billing. The third element is a robust product catalog, capable of describing coverages, conditions and variants. Customer segmentation is the fourth, and it makes it possible to offer different products and prices to each profile.

The fifth is the platform's checkout process, which is fundamental for conversion. The sixth is secure transactions and payment gateways. The seventh is marketing and promotion automation, which makes it possible to launch renewal or cross-sell campaigns. The eighth is search engine positioning, which brings the insurer closer to those who compare options from their phone, like the professional in the opening scene. For a consumer insurer in the B2C market, it is important to consolidate and strengthen both the company's image and the sale of its products to a broad audience.

CRM integration deserves a note. The same McKinsey study notes that a complete CRM can more than double cross-sell rates to existing customers and that full channel integration has raised total sales by 10 to 15 percentage points a year in the cases it analyzed. It is a data point from the European industry and not a promise for every insurer, but it shows where the opportunity lies. The online store is not valuable only for what it sells, but for the data it delivers to the rest of the organization. If you want to see how it connects with relationship strategy, the article on customer experience in the insurance industry expands on the topic.

What this means for senior leadership

The decision to adopt an eCommerce platform at an insurer is, above all, a decision about the customer journey and the role of the agent. In terms of attracting and converting, the store makes it possible to be present at the moment the customer compares, with clear information and a preliminary quote, instead of depending on their filling out a form and waiting. In terms of retaining and building loyalty, customer accounts, expiration reminders and self-service reduce friction at renewal, which is where a good part of the portfolio's value is concentrated.

In efficiency, every inquiry the customer resolves on their own is one less call for the contact center, and every quote with a trail is agent time freed for higher-value cases. Leadership should, however, raise three cautions. The first is that the core policy system is not replaced, but integrated. The second is that agent compensation must be reviewed so the digital channel is not perceived as competition. The third is that the strategy behind every technology implementation must be fully planned and have clear objectives, because a robust platform does not fix a confused commercial model.

A reasonable counterargument is that insurance customers still prefer to buy through an agent. That is true, and McKinsey's data back it up in part. But the lesson is not to delay digital investment, but to design it for the mixed journey, in which the customer researches online, requests a quote and finishes with their agent, or the reverse. Insurers that support both stretches win in both.

How to start on Monday

A consultant with experience in this type of project would recommend starting by observing the customer's real journey and not by choosing a platform. Take three products, for example one auto, one home and one health, and walk through each step as a customer from search to purchase. Note how many steps require a call, how many forms are requested and how long each response takes. That exercise, which takes an afternoon, usually reveals where the leak is.

Next, define with the commercial team which products are candidates for fully online sale, which require assisted quoting and which will continue to be managed by the agent with digital support. With that classification the scope of a first phase is decided, which it almost always makes sense to keep small and measurable, for example a digital catalog with preliminary quotes and customer accounts. Finally, set the indicators that will tell you whether it works, such as the visit-to-quote conversion rate, response time and the percentage of renewals done through self-service. To measure and improve those processes with a method, you can rely on the article on the best way to measure and improve your processes.

How ICX helps

ICX Consulting, a customer experience and commercial strategy consulting firm headquartered in Miami, supports insurers and other financial services companies in the United States and Latin America in designing the customer journey, the distribution model and the channel architecture before choosing technology. Our work in customer experience consulting for insurance is complemented by implementation on Adobe Commerce and by the services of B2C eCommerce and B2B eCommerce. Do you want to know where sales are slipping away today in the digital journey? Request a diagnostic with an ICX consultant.

If you are at the stage of evaluating platforms, the ICX CRM and Customer Experience technology selection toolkit helps you compare options with business criteria. To see how the same logic applies in banking, read the article on the benefits of adopting Magento in the financial industry.

Frequently asked questions

Can an insurer sell all its policies online?

Not necessarily. Simple, standardized products, such as certain self-issued insurance, are well suited to direct sale. Complex contracts usually require an agent because of their customization, and the platform then plays a supporting role, with catalog, quotes and registration, before moving on to the agent's handling.

Does Adobe Commerce replace the core policy system?

No. The commerce platform manages catalog, accounts, quotes, cart and payment, and integrates with the core system, the ERP and the CRM, which continue to administer issuance, the portfolio and claims. Defining those integrations well from the start is one of the most important decisions of the project.

What advantage does a self-service portal offer the policyholder?

It lets them check their products, update preferences and details, pay and receive reminders without calling. For the insurer, it reduces the volume of routine inquiries and improves renewal, because the customer faces less friction when the time comes to pay or renew.

Is it safe to process insurance payments on an eCommerce platform?

It is if the platform integrates with certified gateways and is kept up to date and well configured. Because of the volume and sensitivity of the data, it makes sense to validate the design with the security and compliance teams, and to maintain an update schedule, a matter covered in the article on essential cybersecurity for your Adobe Commerce store.

The insurers that win the next decade will be those that accompany the customer along their entire journey, from the nighttime comparison on the phone to a smooth renewal. If you want to evaluate which part of that path makes sense to digitize first in your company, talk with an ICX consultant and let us design a roadmap that strengthens the role of your agents instead of replacing it.