Beyond CRM: How Salesforce is expanding its role in insurance

Oct 15, 2026 AI in Insurance, Core Systems, Guidewire, Salesforce

Salesforce is widely recognized as a customer relationship management platform, but its role in insurance is becoming broader and more sophisticated. Insurers increasingly use the platform not only for sales and customer service, but also for broker management, digital portals, process automation, policy servicing, unified customer data and even claims workflows. Its industry-specific capabilities are also prompting insurers to consider where Salesforce should sit in relation to core platforms such as Guidewire.

That creates important architectural questions. Which platform should hold authoritative policy and claims data? Where should insurance business logic reside? When does Salesforce add value as an engagement and orchestration layer?

Hubert Młodzianowski, shares his perspective on Salesforce's evolving position inside insurance companies, the practical considerations behind Salesforce–Guidewire implementations and why artificial intelligence will increase, rather than eliminate, the need for strong technology foundations.

"Salesforce should not automatically be inserted into every customer journey." In simple terms, what insurance problems does Salesforce solve?

Hubert Młodzianowski: Salesforce began as a CRM platform, so it initially addressed sales and customer-service challenges. Over time, it expanded through acquisitions and development to add capabilities in areas such as data, automation and industry-specific processes.

In insurance, Salesforce can help create a 360-degree view of customers and brokers. It enables insurers to understand those relationships, consolidate interaction histories, identify cross-selling opportunities and provide employees with a more unified working environment. It also supports some service automation across policy and claims processes.

There are more specialized applications as well. Salesforce Field Service, for example, can support site visits associated with assistance, claims or loss-control activities.

The newer development is Salesforce's expansion into insurance-specific functionality through capabilities that originated with Vlocity. In some markets, Salesforce is now being considered for policy and claims administration, alongside CRM and customer engagement. Sollers has implemented those capabilities for established P&C and life insurers. Adoption varies considerably by market, however, and these broader insurance capabilities are still not widely used across all regions.

What does Sollers implement for insurers using Salesforce?

We work across the insurance value chain. That includes CRM, customer service, sales and distribution, agent and broker portals, policy servicing, claims processes and integration with core insurance platforms.

Customer 360 and Broker 360 are important parts of that work. Creating a meaningful, consolidated view requires more than simply configuring a CRM platform. Insurers usually need to integrate information from multiple systems, reconcile different data structures and present it in a form that employees, agents or brokers can use effectively.

We also build portals and connect them with core platforms such as Guidewire. In other implementations, Salesforce supports end-to-end policy or claims servicing. It can also provide the automation and user experience while another platform – perhaps Guidewire or different core application – continues to serve as the underlying system of record.

How should insurers divide responsibilities between Salesforce and Guidewire?

I find it helpful to distinguish among three roles.

The first is the system of record, which stores authoritative information and protects its integrity and governance. The second is the system of engagement, which manages how customers, employees and business partners interact with processes. The third is the system of differentiation, where the insurer's distinctive workflows and business logic reside.

In a typical Salesforce–Guidewire architecture, Guidewire serves as the system of record and often as the system of differentiation. It holds core insurance data and manages insurance transactions and business rules. Salesforce serves as the engagement layer for customer-service employees, agents, brokers and other partners.

However, that is not the only possible model. Some insurers place selected business logic and process automation in Salesforce. The platform has developed extensive workflow capabilities and insurance-specific functionality, particularly around policy and claims servicing.
This can be especially valuable when the back-end platform is a mainframe or an older system that the insurer cannot immediately replace. Salesforce can provide a modern user experience and automate processes around that platform while the legacy system remains the authoritative record.

When does Salesforce add value as the engagement layer?

One obvious reason to use Salesforce is that the insurer may already have a significant investment in the platform.

But Salesforce should not automatically be inserted into every customer journey. If an insurer is building a highly customized consumer portal that connects only to Guidewire, it may be more appropriate to build the experience using a front-end framework and Guidewire services or an integration layer. Any additional platform should deliver sufficient business value to justify the added architectural complexity.

The case for Salesforce becomes stronger when the user experience must connect with several back-end systems. Salesforce can then provide a common engagement, process and orchestration layer.

It is also compelling when an insurer wants to reuse processes across different groups. A workflow may need to serve customers, contact-center employees, agents and brokers, with appropriate variations for each. Salesforce can combine those portal and workflow capabilities with CRM data and a consolidated view of the relationship.

In my view, the platform is particularly powerful for employee, agent, broker and partner engagement. These users need not only an attractive interface but also access to customer history, tasks, opportunities and information drawn from multiple insurance systems.

What makes Salesforce–Guidewire integration difficult?

Some challenges are common to any transformation: the insurer needs a clear business strategy, channel strategy and operating model. Technology cannot compensate for uncertainty about how the organization wants to serve customers or distribute products.

The platform-specific challenge is that both Salesforce and Guidewire have been evolving. Guidewire customers are moving from on-premises environments to Guidewire Cloud. On the Salesforce side, many insurers have heavily customized implementations of Sales Cloud, a general-purpose CRM, while Salesforce has been expanding Financial Services Cloud and its insurance-specific data model.

The Salesforce and Guidewire data models are not identical. At the same time, insurers may have older connectors, custom interfaces and other integration assets built for earlier platform versions. They need to determine what can be retained, what must be redesigned and which tools are compatible with their particular architecture.

This is one of the questions we are most frequently asked: What is available, what is compatible with the systems we have, and which existing assets can we reuse?

The answer depends on several factors, including whether the insurer is using Guidewire on premises or in the cloud, whether its Salesforce environment is based primarily on Sales Cloud or Financial Services Cloud, and whether another integration layer sits between the platforms.

This is where experience with both Salesforce and Guidewire becomes important. The implementation team must understand not only the technology but also the insurance processes and data that move between the systems.

What business outcomes can an insurer expect?

The first opportunity is to reduce the number of systems employees must touch to complete one operation or task. Salesforce can provide the working environment while Guidewire supplies the underlying data and insurance processes. That can reduce manual handoffs, shorten service times and lower operational effort.

The second opportunity is a more complete understanding of the customer. Employees can see who they are speaking with, which products the person or business holds, what previous interactions have occurred and what needs may remain unmet. That can improve service, support retention and enable appropriate cross-selling opportunities.

A common data and engagement layer can also support AI agents. The industry is still establishing where autonomous agents will deliver the greatest measurable value, but they will require consistent data, defined processes and governed access to underlying systems.

How has Sollers' Salesforce practice developed?

As you may know, Sollers has a specific focus on serving insurance and financial services companies. Financial services and insurance remain our sole focus. We began exploring a closer Salesforce partnership about five years ago. We wanted to identify an area in which Sollers could provide distinctive value rather than become another general CRM implementation partner.

Salesforce's acquisition of Vlocity created that opportunity. We built a small team focused on implementing insurance policy and claims capabilities on Salesforce.

Some insurers had selected the platform and initially worked with Salesforce partners that possessed strong CRM knowledge but limited experience with insurance policy and claims administration. Sollers became involved in several programs that needed to be rescued or put back on track. Our insurance-domain knowledge helped us address those implementation challenges even while our Salesforce practice was relatively young.

That foundation allowed us to expand into CRM, Customer 360 and other Salesforce programs. We also developed a close relationship with Salesforce's central insurance team and with local Salesforce teams in multiple markets.

The practice has grown to around 100 professionals with expertise spanning CRM, insurance platforms and digital transformation. It combines Salesforce specialists trained in insurance, insurance professionals trained in Salesforce and people recruited from the Salesforce ecosystem who have developed insurance expertise. That growth, industry specialization and delivery record contributed to Sollers being recognized recently as a "Salesforce Rising Star Partner of the Year."

Which insurance use cases are attracting the most interest?

Claims and underwriting are two of the most active areas. Both involve complex processes, multiple sources of information and currently substantial manual work. Core-system providers such as Guidewire and Salesforce are developing capabilities in these areas, while insurers are looking for ways to automate activities without losing the human judgment desired for more complex decisions.

The opportunity is often in the middle layer: process automation and, increasingly, agent-enabled process automation. That could include collecting and classifying information, routing work, preparing recommendations, identifying exceptions and helping employees complete routine activities.

Data integration is another major area. Brokers, for example, may work with many carriers and need a unified data structure that helps them compare offers and manage customer relationships efficiently.

Outside of P&C markets, some insurers are also beginning to consider Salesforce for a larger role in core processes.

How do priorities differ by geography?

The differences are significant because each market has its own regulations, established platforms, distribution structures and operating practices.

In the Nordics, much of the discussion concerns established systems such as TIA. Insurers are considering whether to replace these older platforms or retain them while adding a modern experience and automation layer.

In France, we see substantial interest in claims information, assistance and service-oriented processes. In the UK London Market, the focus is more heavily on underwriting and underwriting workbenches. The broader UK market is more varied, with interest in areas including health-insurance automation.

In Japan, we see potential for Salesforce to grow in life insurance. In P&C, Salesforce is more likely to be integrated with Guidewire, which has a strong market presence.

"The immediate U.S. opportunity is often to make the Salesforce–Guidewire combination work more effectively."

The United States is distinctive because many insurers still think of Salesforce primarily as CRM. They typically integrate it with Guidewire or another core system rather than use Salesforce's broader insurance functionality. As a result, the immediate U.S. opportunity is often to make the Salesforce–Guidewire combination work more effectively.

Is Salesforce still viewed too narrowly as CRM?

Yes. Salesforce has developed considerably more industry-specific functionality during the past decade, but many insurance executives are not yet familiar with the full scope of those capabilities.

Insurers are most likely to look beyond CRM when they need to be creative about their architecture – perhaps because an established platform does not serve a particular country, product or line of business optimally. That occurs more frequently in life and health insurance, which differ substantially among markets, than in P&C, where processes tend to be more consistent.

There were challenges in some earlier insurance implementations, and that history may make certain insurers cautious. But the platform and its insurance capabilities have matured.

How will AI and Agentforce affect the architecture?

"AI does not remove the need for established platforms."

AI does not remove the need for established platforms. In fact, it makes the distinction among systems of record, engagement and differentiation even more important.

AI-assisted development may make it easier to create new experiences and automate individual tasks. But insurers still require stable platforms on which to define data models, processes, permissions and business rules. This is particularly important in a highly regulated industry that needs security, governance, traceability and consistent treatment of customers.

Salesforce is particularly well positioned within the system-of-differentiation layer. It provides an established environment for customer data, business processes and rules. AI agents and other systems of innovation can then operate around that layer, drawing upon governed information and taking permitted actions across workflows.

The risk is treating AI as a substitute for architecture. An agent cannot reliably service a policy, assist with a claim or support an underwriting decision unless it knows which data is authoritative, which rules apply, what it is allowed to do and when a human must intervene.

The conversation is no longer whether Salesforce belongs in insurance architectures. The real question is how insurers can combine platforms such as Salesforce and Guidewire to create a foundation ready for AI-driven operations.