Moving an Insurance Contact Centre to the Cloud Without Disrupting Renewals

Insurers migrate a legacy contact centre without disrupting renewals by planning cutover around the renewal calendar, moving numbers and carrier services in the same plan, keeping old recordings accessible, and testing payment calls before go-live, with a rollback route ready.

TL;DR

• The riskiest part of an insurance contact centre migration is the cutover. Plan it around your renewal calendar.
• Seven things move in a migration: phone numbers, carrier lines, call flows, recordings, integrations, payment handling and reporting.
• Changing a provider for a critical or important outsourced service may require a notification to the Central Bank, so check before you sign.
• KennCo migrated in 6 weeks, Campion in under 12 weeks, and An Post Insurance moved from one customer channel to four.

Why is migrating an insurance contact centre riskier than other sectors?

Insurance contact centres carry revenue, regulated conduct and card payments on the same calls. A renewal call can involve a premium quote from the broker platform, a card payment and a recording that may be needed if a complaint arises later. If any of those breaks during a migration, the cost shows up as lapsed policies and complaints.

Most legacy insurance contact centres share the same starting point: on-premise hardware, voice-only, near or past end of support. An Post Insurance ran on a voice-only Avaya system that needed constant upgrades from a small in-house IT team. Campion ran a Cisco on-premise contact centre over ISDN circuits. KennCo's on-premise telephony had reached the end of its supported life.

A contact centre migration is the move of call routing, phone numbers, carrier services, recordings, integrations and reporting from one platform to another, ending in a cutover where live calls switch to the new system.

When is the right time to cut over?

The right time is the quietest window in your renewal calendar, on a day you can support the new system for the following week. Every insurer's calendar is different, so start by pulling 12 months of call volumes by week.

Three rules apply almost everywhere:

• Avoid renewal peaks and month-end. Payment calls and renewal queries usually cluster there; your 12-month data will confirm where.
• Cut over out of hours, mid-week. That leaves working days immediately afterwards for staff and suppliers to fix problems while volumes are normal.
• Freeze other changes. Don't launch a new product, change the IVR menu or start a marketing campaign in the same fortnight.

Should an insurer migrate all at once or in phases?

It depends on how many offices, brands and queues are involved. The table compares the three common approaches.

Many projects combine them: parallel testing before a single cutover, or a pilot office before the rest.

What actually has to move?

Seven components move in an insurance contact centre migration. Missing any one of them is how renewals get disrupted.

• Phone numbers. Every published number, including old brand numbers from acquisitions, has to be listed and ported.
• Carrier lines. Campion's ISDN PRI circuits cost over €4,000 a month. Moving them to DigitalWell Direct SIP during the migration cut roughly €3,000 a month and added capacity.
• Call flows and routing. This is the moment to redesign them. KennCo's engineers reviewed every call flow, routing rule and report before rebuilding them in the cloud.
• Call recordings. Decide where historic recordings will live and how staff will retrieve them. KennCo's new environment included 250,000 hours of cloud recording storage with replay and compliance management.
• Integrations. Broker quoting and policy systems need to connect to the new platform. An Post Insurance chose DigitalWell partly because it had already integrated Applied Connect with Genesys Cloud CX.
• Payment handling. Card data must stay out of recordings under the PCI Data Security Standard. Campion's migration introduced automated pause and resume on payment screens.
• Reporting and workforce management. Rebuild the dashboards supervisors rely on before go-live. An Post Insurance moved to fully automated forecasting and scheduling.

Does a migration need to be reported to the Central Bank?

Sometimes. The Central Bank's Cross-Industry Guidance on Outsourcing expects regulated firms to notify it of planned critical or important outsourcing arrangements, and of material changes to existing ones. If your contact centre or its provider is classed as critical or important, moving to a new provider may fall into scope.

Check your outsourcing register and policy early, before signing. Your compliance team will also need the new provider's due diligence pack, service levels, exit terms and continuity plans. The revised Consumer Protection Code, in force since 24 March 2026, is another reason to confirm that recording, complaints and record-keeping still work on day one.

What does a renewal-safe migration plan include?

Use this sequence as a checklist. It combines the project governance used on Campion's migration with steps specific to renewal periods.

1. Map the renewal calendar. Pick the cutover window from 12 months of weekly call volumes.
2. Inventory every number and line. Include acquired brands, fax lines, alarm lines and numbers printed on policy documents.
3. Check outsourcing obligations. Confirm whether the change needs a Central Bank notification and update the outsourcing register.
4. Redesign call flows with the business. Involve renewals, claims and payments teams, as well as IT.
5. Plan the recordings move. Decide how staff retrieve pre-migration recordings for complaints and disputes.
6. Build and test the payment path. Test live-style card payments and confirm nothing reaches the recordings.
7. Test real call scenarios. Run renewal quotes, mid-term adjustments, claims updates and payments end to end with the policy system connected.
8. Train agents and supervisors. Campion's project used Train-the-Trainer sessions for supervisors and agents, plus admin training for five system administrators.
9. Cut over with a rollback route. Keep the old platform available until the new one has handled normal volumes.
10. Watch the first two weeks closely. Review abandoned calls, transfer failures and payment exceptions daily, and fix them before the next peak.

How long does an insurance contact centre migration take?

DigitalWell's published timelines for contact centre implementation are 6 to 8 weeks for a pilot and 3 to 4 months for full production. Insurance projects have landed inside that range.

• KennCo Insurance moved 50+ contact centre agents and 30 office users from end-of-support on-premise telephony to DigitalWell 360 in 6 weeks.
• Campion Insurance moved 300 agents and 73 back-office users across 13 offices to Genesys Cloud CX in under 12 weeks, delivered remotely.
• An Post Insurance moved 120 agents and 30 back-office staff from Avaya to Genesys Cloud CX, with redesigned call flows, voice bots for 24-hour self-service and workforce management. The project saved €220,000 in technology total cost of ownership over three years.

"Migrating our telephony infrastructure to a cloud-based solution has been a transformative step forward for our business, enhancing scalability, improving call quality, and giving our teams the flexibility to connect and collaborate from anywhere. DigitalWell has been a trusted and reliable partner, guiding us through this complex journey successfully." Kelan O'Connor, CIO, An Post

The Customer Experience page summarises these projects alongside CarTrawler and Ergo.

What can an insurer add once the migration is done?

A cloud platform makes the next steps smaller projects. Campion's first phase was deliberately voice-focused, on a platform that already supports email, webchat, messaging and bots. Since 2022, Campion has added over 15 acquired broker businesses and grown past 450 agents on the same platform, with no hardware procurement.

AI is the other common next step. DigitalWell AI Voice Agents handle renewal and premium queries, mid-term adjustments, claims status and card payments end to end. DigitalWell estimates that a phone-assisted mid-term adjustment costs an insurer around €15 to €20 in agent time, systems and admin. The Insurance Brokers & Providers page sets out how that cost changes when the call is automated.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we keep our existing phone numbers?

Yes. Numbers are ported to the new carrier as part of the migration. List every number first, including numbers on policy documents and from acquired brands.

What happens to our old call recordings?

They need a plan. Either migrate them to the new platform's storage or keep read access to the old archive for as long as your retention policy requires. Test retrieval before cutover.

How do we avoid downtime during cutover?

Cut over out of hours, mid-week, outside renewal peaks, with the old platform available as a rollback. Test routing, payments and integrations on the new platform beforehand.

Do we need a new contact centre platform to add AI?

No. AI can be added at the network layer through DigitalWell's AI Voice Network, alongside an existing platform. Some insurers still migrate first to get omnichannel, reporting and workforce management.

Should we copy our current call flows exactly?

Usually not. A migration is the best time to fix routing that has built up over years. KennCo used its migration to redesign call routing and reporting from the ground up.

Which platform should an insurer migrate to?

It depends on agent count, channels and integration needs. Campion and An Post chose Genesys Cloud CX; KennCo chose DigitalWell 360. The contact centre implementation page explains how DigitalWell matches the platform to the operation.

Key Takeaways

• Plan the cutover around the renewal calendar, out of hours and mid-week, with a rollback ready.
• Seven components move: numbers, carrier lines, call flows, recordings, integrations, payment handling and reporting.
• A change of provider for a critical or important outsourced service may need a Central Bank notification, so check your register before signing.
• Testing real renewal, adjustment, claims and payment scenarios before go-live is what protects revenue during the switch.
• KennCo's 6 weeks, Campion's under 12 and An Post Insurance's €220,000 three-year saving show what a planned migration delivers.

Planning a contact centre migration around your renewal calendar? Book an Insurance Operations Review with DigitalWell and we'll map your numbers, integrations and cutover window.