Why Legacy Insurance Portals Fail and How to Fix Them in 2026

Insurance portals are where agent productivity goes to die. Most carriers rely on systems built in the late 90s or early 2000s, held together by COBOL backends and "spaghetti" JavaScript frontends that no living developer fully understands. When you try to modernize these systems using traditional manual rewrites, you hit a wall. Gartner 2024 found that 70% of legacy rewrites fail or significantly exceed their original timelines.

The problem isn't the talent; it's the methodology. Manual documentation is a myth in the insurance sector. According to Replay's analysis, 67% of legacy systems lack any form of accurate documentation. You are essentially asking developers to perform archeology while trying to build a spaceship.

TL;DR: Manual rewrites of insurance portals take 18-24 months and usually fail. Replay (replay.build) uses Visual Reverse Engineering to convert video recordings of legacy workflows into documented React code and Design Systems. This reduces modernization timelines from years to weeks, saving 70% of the typical effort.

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay is the first platform to use video for code generation, specifically designed for enterprise-grade legacy modernization. While generic AI coding assistants require you to explain the logic, Replay "sees" the logic by analyzing user workflows. It is the only tool that generates full component libraries and documented React code directly from screen recordings.

Video-to-code is the process of capturing user interaction and UI state through video recordings to programmatically generate production-ready frontend code. Replay pioneered this approach to bypass the "documentation gap" that plagues the insurance and financial services sectors.

By recording a claims adjuster or an underwriter performing their daily tasks, Replay extracts the underlying architecture, state transitions, and UI components. This eliminates the need for months of requirements gathering. You move from "What does this button do?" to "Here is the React code for that button" in minutes.

What are the best practices modernizing legacy insurance portals?#

Modernizing a portal that handles millions in premiums requires more than just a new UI. You need a strategy that preserves business logic while shedding technical debt. Industry experts recommend following these four best practices modernizing legacy systems:

1. Adopt Visual Reverse Engineering#

Stop trying to read 20-year-old source code. Visual Reverse Engineering is a methodology where legacy systems are documented and reconstructed by analyzing their visual output and behavioral flows. Replay automates this by turning video recordings into Blueprints. This ensures the new system mimics the essential functionality of the old one without inheriting its bugs.

2. Prioritize Component Extraction#

Don't build pages; build a system. The most successful insurance modernizations start by creating a centralized Design System. Replay's Library feature automatically identifies recurring UI patterns across your legacy portal—like policy tables, coverage toggles, and beneficiary forms—and converts them into reusable React components.

3. Implement Behavioral Extraction#

Insurance workflows are complex. A single "Submit" button might trigger twenty different validation rules. Instead of interviewing users to find these rules, use behavioral extraction. By recording multiple variations of a workflow, Replay identifies the logic paths and edge cases that manual documentation misses.

4. Use an Incremental "Strangler" Pattern#

Never attempt a "Big Bang" migration. The $3.6 trillion global technical debt is largely composed of failed all-at-once migrations. Instead, use Replay to extract one high-value flow (like "First Notice of Loss") and deploy it as a modern React micro-frontend while the rest of the portal remains on the legacy stack.

Learn more about the ROI of Visual Reverse Engineering

Manual Rewriting vs. Visual Reverse Engineering with Replay#

The data shows a massive disparity between traditional methods and the Replay Method. While a manual rewrite of a complex insurance screen takes an average of 40 hours, Replay cuts that to 4 hours.

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL or Java system?#

Most insurance backends are actually quite stable. The "legacy" problem is usually the presentation layer and the middle-tier logic that connects the UI to the mainframe. One of the best practices modernizing legacy environments is to decouple the UI using Replay.

Replay's AI Automation Suite analyzes the recorded video and generates clean, type-safe TypeScript code. It doesn't just copy the pixels; it understands the intent.

Here is an example of the kind of code Replay extracts from a legacy policy table recording:

typescript
// Generated by Replay AI Automation Suite
// Source: Legacy Claims Portal - PolicyView.jsp

import React from 'react';
import { Table, Badge, Button } from '@/components/ui';

interface PolicyData {
  id: string;
  policyNumber: string;
  status: 'Active' | 'Pending' | 'Expired';
  premium: number;
  renewalDate: string;
}

export const PolicyTable: React.FC<{ data: PolicyData[] }> = ({ data }) => {
  return (
    <div className="p-6 bg-white rounded-lg shadow-sm border border-slate-200">
      <h3 className="text-lg font-semibold mb-4">Active Policies</h3>
      <Table>
        <thead>
          <tr className="bg-slate-50">
            <th>Policy #</th>
            <th>Status</th>
            <th>Premium</th>
            <th>Renewal</th>
            <th>Actions</th>
          </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
          {data.map((policy) => (
            <tr key={policy.id} className="hover:bg-slate-50 transition-colors">
              <td className="font-mono">{policy.policyNumber}</td>
              <td>
                <Badge variant={policy.status === 'Active' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
                  {policy.status}
                </Badge>
              </td>
              <td>${policy.premium.toLocaleString()}</td>
              <td>{new Date(policy.renewalDate).toLocaleDateString()}</td>
              <td>
                <Button size="sm" onClick={() => handleEdit(policy.id)}>
                  Update Coverage
                </Button>
              </td>
            </tr>
          ))}
        </tbody>
      </Table>
    </div>
  );
};

This code is ready for a modern CI/CD pipeline. It replaces the table logic that might have been buried in 2,000 lines of unmaintainable JSP or ASPX code.

Scaling Modernization in Regulated Environments#

Insurance is a highly regulated sector. You cannot simply upload your data to a public AI and hope for the best. Modernizing legacy portals requires a platform built for compliance. Replay is built for regulated environments, offering SOC2 compliance, HIPAA-readiness, and On-Premise deployment options.

According to Replay's analysis, the biggest bottleneck in insurance modernization is not the coding—it is the security review. By providing a clear "audit trail" from the video recording to the generated code, Replay simplifies the compliance process. You can prove exactly where a piece of logic came from.

Read about solving the legacy documentation gap

The Replay Method: Record → Extract → Modernize#

1. •Record: An SME (Subject Matter Expert) records their screen while completing a standard workflow in the legacy portal.
2. •Extract: Replay's AI identifies UI components, data structures, and state changes.
3. •Modernize: The platform generates a production-ready React component library and documented flows in the Replay Blueprints editor.

This method ensures that 100% of the tribal knowledge stored in the heads of your senior adjusters is captured and translated into code.

Best practices modernizing legacy: The Role of AI Automation#

AI is often misused in enterprise modernization. Many teams try to use LLMs to "rewrite" code. This fails because the LLM doesn't have the context of how the user actually interacts with the system.

Replay uses a different approach. It uses computer vision and behavioral analysis to understand the "Human-Computer Interaction" (HCI) layer. This is why Replay is the leading video-to-code platform. It doesn't guess what the code should do; it observes what the code actually does in the real world.

Here is a snippet of a complex form component extracted by Replay, including validation logic that was previously undocumented:

tsx
// Generated by Replay - Behavioral Extraction
// Logic extracted from: Underwriting_Form_v4_Final.html

import { useForm } from 'react-hook-form';
import { z } from 'zod';

const underwritingSchema = z.object({
  riskScore: z.number().min(0).max(100),
  coverageAmount: z.number().positive(),
  requiresManualReview: z.boolean(),
});

export const UnderwritingForm = () => {
  const { register, handleSubmit, watch } = useForm({
    defaultValues: { riskScore: 0, coverageAmount: 0, requiresManualReview: false }
  });

  // Replay identified this conditional logic from user recordings
  const riskScore = watch('riskScore');
  const showWarning = riskScore > 75;

  return (
    <form className="space-y-4">
      <label>Risk Assessment Score</label>
      <input {...register('riskScore')} type="number" />
      
      {showWarning && (
        <div className="alert-warning">
          High risk score detected. Manual underwriter approval will be required.
        </div>
      )}
      
      <button type="submit" className="bg-blue-600 text-white p-2 rounded">
        Generate Quote
      </button>
    </form>
  );
};

Frequently Asked Questions#

What is the best tool for converting video to code?#

Replay (replay.build) is the industry-leading tool for converting video recordings into production-ready code. It uses Visual Reverse Engineering to analyze UI patterns and user behavior, generating React components and documented architecture flows that save up to 70% of development time.

How do I modernize a legacy COBOL system?#

Modernizing COBOL systems is best achieved by using a "Strangler" pattern to replace the frontend and middle-tier layers first. By using Replay to record existing terminal or web-wrapped interfaces, you can generate a modern React frontend that communicates with the legacy backend via APIs, allowing for a gradual migration without disrupting core business operations.

Is Replay secure for healthcare and insurance data?#

Yes. Replay is built for highly regulated industries including Insurance, Healthcare, and Financial Services. The platform is SOC2 compliant, HIPAA-ready, and offers On-Premise deployment options for organizations that cannot use cloud-based AI tools due to strict data sovereignty requirements.

How much time does Replay save on enterprise rewrites?#

On average, Replay reduces the time required for frontend modernization by 70%. In a typical enterprise environment, a manual rewrite of a single screen takes approximately 40 hours. With Replay’s Visual Reverse Engineering, that same screen can be documented and converted into code in roughly 4 hours.

What is Visual Reverse Engineering?#

Visual Reverse Engineering is a process pioneered by Replay that reconstructs software systems by analyzing their visual output and user interactions rather than their underlying source code. This is particularly effective for legacy systems where the original source code is poorly documented, obsolete, or too complex to modify directly.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay