Don’t MacGyver Your Way to Insurance Digital Transformation

By Michael Schwabrow

If you were a TV fan in the ’80s or caught the reruns, you likely remember MacGyver: the unflappable guy who could defuse a bomb with a paperclip, a stick of chewing gum, and whatever else he found lying around. It was impressive. It was fun to watch. And it almost never looked like it should work-yet somehow, it did.

In Hollywood, that’s great television. In insurance, it’s a disaster.

The “MacGyver” Mindset in Insurance Tech

You don’t need a Swiss Army knife to find MacGyver alive and well in the insurance industry, you just need to peek inside most tech stacks.

According to Earnix, 74% of insurers still operate with outdated legacy technology across pricing, underwriting, rating, claims, and other core functions. These systems are held together by quick plugins, hastily built automations, and custom-coded connectors that were meant to be “temporary fixes” years ago.

The result? A frankenstack of fragile integrations that looks modern on the outside but creaks under pressure. And just like MacGyver’s improvised solutions, what seems brilliant in the moment often becomes a bigger problem down the road.

Why MacGyver-Style Transformation Fails

Improvisation might save the day in an action sequence, but in digital transformation, it creates a ticking time bomb.

• Budget drain – Insurers spend a large portion of their IT budget just keeping legacy systems alive. That’s budget you can’t invest in innovation, product launches, or customer experience.
• Security gaps – Each unvetted integration or decade-old code snippet is a potential vulnerability, putting customer data and compliance at risk.
• Data silos – Quick fixes rarely play well together. That means analytics teams spend more time untangling data than using it to try to make smart decisions.

What looks clever in the short term becomes costly and cumbersome in the long term.

The Hidden Costs of Being “Clever”

Every time you improvise instead of modernize, you’re adding to your technical debt. That debt compounds. And one day, you wake up with a system so tangled that adding a new product, entering a new market, or delivering a faster claims experience is impossible without ripping everything apart.

Insurers stuck on legacy platforms can face significantly higher IT costs per policy compared to those running on modern, integrated systems. That’s money wasted on maintenance instead of innovation.

And the opportunity cost? Even worse. Slow claims, missed cross-sell opportunities, frustrated customers who jump ship-it all adds up.

Time to Call the A-Team

MacGyver was a solo act. But in the real world, the biggest wins come from a coordinated team with a realistic digital modernization plan.

If you want a transformation that sticks and scales, you need a tech stack where every component knows its role and works seamlessly together.

When the right components work in harmony in a larger plan, you get something far more powerful than any improvised workaround. That’s not duct tape. That’s interoperability. And it’s the difference between surviving and thriving in the modern insurance market.

Coming Next: Need a Plan That Comes Together? Build Your Insurtech A-Team

In Part 2, we’ll swap the paperclips for precision tools and show you how to assemble your Insurtech A-team for insurance digital transformation.

Ready to ditch the duct tape? Let’s talk about building an interoperability strategy that delivers lasting value.