Visual Logic Capture for Legacy Insurance Claims Systems: Reducing Discovery by 65%

Legacy claims systems are black boxes of undocumented business logic, often held together by tribal knowledge and decades of "temporary" patches. For a Senior Architect, the nightmare isn't the code itself—it’s the discovery phase. When you are tasked with modernizing a 30-year-old claims engine, you aren't just fighting technical debt; you are fighting the $3.6 trillion global technical debt mountain with a manual shovel.

According to Replay's analysis, the average enterprise rewrite timeline spans 18 months, yet 70% of these legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their timelines. The primary culprit? A fundamental lack of documentation. 67% of legacy systems have no reliable technical specs, meaning the only "source of truth" is the behavior of the UI itself.

This is where visual logic capture legacy workflows change the math. By recording real user sessions and converting those visual interactions into documented React code and architectural blueprints, we can reduce the discovery phase by over 65%.

TL;DR: Legacy insurance systems often lack documentation, leading to 18-month+ modernization timelines. By using Replay for visual logic capture legacy workflows, enterprises can automate the extraction of business rules directly from the UI. This shifts the manual effort from 40 hours per screen to just 4 hours, saving 70% of the total modernization time while ensuring SOC2 and HIPAA compliance.

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The Discovery Bottleneck in Insurance Modernization#

In the insurance sector, "logic" is rarely just a database query. It is a complex web of conditional validations: If the claimant is in California, and the policy was issued before 2018, and the damage exceeds $5,000, then show the Subrogation Panel.

In a legacy Java Swing or COBOL-backed web app, these rules are often hardcoded into the frontend or buried in thousands of lines of spaghetti code. Traditional discovery involves "shadowing" claims adjusters for weeks, taking manual notes, and trying to reconstruct the state machine from scratch.

Industry experts recommend moving away from manual interviews toward automated capture. Manual discovery is not only slow; it’s inaccurate. It misses the edge cases that adjusters handle subconsciously.

Visual logic capture legacy is the process of using computer vision and AI automation to record these UI behaviors and translate them into structured technical requirements and functional code. Instead of guessing how a "Claims Adjudication" screen works, you record a senior adjuster processing a claim. Replay then parses that recording into a documented React component library and a logical flow diagram.

The Cost of Manual Discovery vs. Automated Capture#

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Implementing Visual Logic Capture Legacy Workflows#

To successfully implement visual logic capture legacy strategies, architects must stop looking at the source code as the starting point. The source code is the "how," but the UI is the "what."

Video-to-code is the process of capturing user interactions—clicks, hovers, data entries, and state transitions—and using AI to generate high-fidelity, production-ready React components that mirror the original functionality but utilize modern architecture.

Step 1: Capturing the State Machine#

Insurance claims are state-heavy. When a user moves from "Initial Filing" to "Assessment," dozens of hidden flags are set. Using Replay, you record these flows. The platform’s "Flows" feature maps the architectural transitions, identifying every API call and state change triggered by the UI.

Step 2: Translating to Modern React#

Once the logic is captured, the next step is generating the code. Manual rewrite involves a developer looking at a legacy screen and trying to recreate it in CSS and TypeScript. This takes roughly 40 hours per screen. With Replay, this is reduced to 4 hours.

Below is an example of the type of complex conditional logic that Replay extracts from a legacy claims UI and converts into a clean, typed React component.

typescript
// Generated by Replay Visual Logic Capture
import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { SubrogationPanel, ValidationAlert } from './components/claims';

interface ClaimState {
  claimAmount: number;
  jurisdiction: string;
  policyDate: Date;
  isExpedited: boolean;
}

const AdjudicationLogic: React.FC<{ initialData: ClaimState }> = ({ initialData }) => {
  const [state, setState] = useState(initialData);
  const [showSubrogation, setShowSubrogation] = useState(false);

  // Replay captured this hidden logic from the legacy Java app behavior
  useEffect(() => {
    const isCALogic = state.jurisdiction === 'CA' && 
                     state.claimAmount > 5000 && 
                     state.policyDate < new Date('2018-01-01');
    
    if (isCALogic) {
      setShowSubrogation(true);
    }
  }, [state]);

  return (
    <div className="p-6 border-l-4 border-blue-500">
      <h3 className="text-xl font-bold">Claim Adjudication Engine</h3>
      {showSubrogation && (
        <SubrogationPanel 
          amount={state.claimAmount} 
          onVerify={() => console.log("Verified")} 
        />
      )}
      {/* Additional UI captured from legacy recording */}
    </div>
  );
};

export default AdjudicationLogic;

Learn more about modernizing complex UI logic

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Why "Visual Logic Capture Legacy" is Essential for Regulated Industries#

For Financial Services, Healthcare, and Government, the risk of "losing" logic during a rewrite is a compliance nightmare. If a legacy system was correctly applying a specific federal regulation for 20 years, and that logic is missed during a manual rewrite, the company faces massive fines.

The Documentation Gap#

As noted earlier, 67% of legacy systems lack documentation. In an insurance context, this means the "Business Requirements Document" (BRD) is often a 500-page PDF from 2004 that no longer reflects the actual code.

Visual logic capture legacy bypasses the need for outdated docs. It creates a "Living Blueprint." Replay’s AI Automation Suite analyzes the recorded video, identifies the form fields, the validation rules, and the navigation patterns, and generates a Design System that is consistent across the entire enterprise.

Security and Compliance#

Modernizing in insurance requires SOC2 and HIPAA-ready environments. Replay is built for these regulated environments, offering On-Premise deployment options so that sensitive claimant data never leaves your secure perimeter during the capture process.

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Bridging the Gap: From Video to Architecture#

The real power of visual logic capture legacy is not just in the UI, but in the underlying "Flows." When you record a user navigating through a multi-step insurance quote, Replay isn't just seeing pixels; it’s identifying the architectural intent.

1. •Blueprints (Editor): Allows architects to tweak the captured logic before it becomes code.
2. •Library (Design System): Ensures that the newly generated React components adhere to the company's modern brand guidelines.
3. •AI Automation Suite: Handles the heavy lifting of converting legacy data structures into modern JSON/TypeScript interfaces.

Consider the complexity of a legacy "Policy Endorsement" screen. It might have 150 input fields with cross-field validation. Manually mapping this would take a team of analysts months.

typescript
// Example of an AI-generated interface from a Visual Logic Capture session
export interface PolicyEndorsement {
  policyId: string;
  effectiveDate: string; // ISO format extracted from legacy date picker
  endorsementType: 'ADD_DRIVER' | 'REMOVE_DRIVER' | 'CHANGE_COVERAGE';
  
  // Logic captured: this field only appears if endorsementType is 'CHANGE_COVERAGE'
  coverageDetails?: {
    liabilityLimit: number;
    deductible: number;
    hasUninsuredMotorist: boolean;
  };

  // Metadata captured from legacy session context
  auditTrail: {
    capturedFromUser: string;
    legacySystemId: string;
    captureTimestamp: string;
  };
}

By leveraging Replay, the engineering team can focus on higher-level architectural decisions—like moving to a micro-services backend—rather than spending 1,000 hours manually documenting the frontend.

The Future of Visual Reverse Engineering

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The Strategic Impact of Reducing Discovery#

When discovery is reduced by 65%, the entire economics of the modernization project change. Instead of an 18-month "Big Bang" rewrite that has a high probability of failure, organizations can move toward an incremental, low-risk modernization strategy.

1. Accelerated Time-to-Market#

In the competitive insurance landscape, the ability to launch a new digital portal in 6 months instead of 2 years is a significant competitive advantage. Visual logic capture legacy enables this by providing a "head start" on the most tedious part of the development lifecycle.

2. Elimination of Technical Debt#

By converting legacy code into modern, documented React, you aren't just moving the mess to a new platform. You are cleaning it. Replay’s output is clean, modular, and follows modern best practices, effectively wiping out decades of technical debt in a single pass.

3. Preservation of Institutional Knowledge#

When senior adjusters or developers retire, they take their knowledge with them. By using visual capture today, you "record" that knowledge into a format that is machine-readable and developer-friendly, ensuring the business logic lives on in the code, not just in people's heads.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

What exactly is visual logic capture legacy?#

Visual logic capture legacy is a methodology that uses video recordings of legacy software interactions to automatically generate technical documentation, architectural flows, and modern frontend code (like React). It eliminates the need for manual discovery and shadowing.

How does Replay handle sensitive insurance data during capture?#

Replay is designed for regulated industries. It is SOC2 and HIPAA-ready. For maximum security, Replay offers an On-Premise version, ensuring that all video data and code generation happen within your organization's secure infrastructure.

Can Replay extract logic from "Green Screen" or Mainframe applications?#

Yes. Because Replay uses visual reverse engineering, it can capture logic from any UI—whether it's a 1980s terminal emulator, a 1990s Delphi app, or a 2000s Java applet. If a user can interact with it on a screen, Replay can capture the logic.

Does the generated React code require significant manual cleanup?#

While no AI-generated code is 100% perfect, Replay reduces the manual effort from 40 hours per screen to approximately 4 hours. This includes the time needed for a developer to review the generated components and integrate them into the broader application architecture.

How does this integrate with our existing Design System?#

Replay includes a "Library" feature that allows you to map captured legacy components to your modern Design System. This ensures that the modernized screens look and feel like your current brand, even if the legacy original was visually outdated.

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Conclusion: The New Path to Modernization#

The $3.6 trillion technical debt problem won't be solved by throwing more developers at manual rewrites. It requires a shift in how we understand legacy systems. By treating the UI as a map of the underlying business logic, and using visual logic capture legacy tools like Replay, enterprises can finally break the cycle of failed rewrites.

If you are facing a 24-month modernization timeline and 6 months of discovery, it’s time to change your approach. Capture the logic, generate the code, and move your insurance platform into the future in weeks, not years.

Ready to modernize without rewriting from scratch? Book a pilot with Replay