Regure vs Duck Creek Claims: Modern Alternative for MGAs & Brokers

Duck Creek Technologies is a legitimate enterprise P&C insurance platform with a substantial installed base among North American carriers. It has earned its market position. This comparison is not an attempt to dismiss it. It is an attempt to help MGAs, brokers, and mid-market insurers make an accurate assessment of whether Duck Creek is the right platform for their specific situation — or whether a platform built for a different segment of the market will deliver better outcomes faster, at lower total cost, and with less operational disruption.

The answer depends almost entirely on your organisation's size, structure, and capacity for technology transformation. Duck Creek is a powerful platform for the buyer it was designed for. For the buyer it was not designed for — and that buyer includes most MGAs, delegated authority brokers, TPAs, and emerging carriers — it is a significant mismatch that carries real financial and operational risk.

For a structured feature-by-feature breakdown, see the Regure vs Duck Creek comparison page. This article focuses on the strategic and operational considerations that matter most in a platform selection decision.

Duck Creek Technologies: What It Is and Where It Excels

Duck Creek is an integrated P&C insurance technology suite comprising three primary modules: Duck Creek Policy, Duck Creek Billing, and Duck Creek Claims. The platform is designed for carriers that want to replace or modernise their core systems — policy administration, premium collection, and claims management — within a single vendor ecosystem, delivered via the company's cloud (SaaS) On-Demand architecture.

Duck Creek's genuine strengths are worth stating clearly before addressing its limitations:

• Deep P&C line coverage across motor, property, workers' compensation, commercial liability, and specialty lines, with pre-built product templates and content for US state regulatory requirements
• A configurable product architecture that allows business users to make product and workflow changes without requiring developer involvement — a meaningful step forward from the hardcoded legacy systems Duck Creek typically replaces
• A mature policy, billing, and claims suite that operates as an integrated stack, reducing the integration burden for carriers that need all three components
• A large and established partner ecosystem, including a network of system integrators with deep Duck Creek implementation experience, providing implementation capacity and risk management options for large programmes
• Strong North American market penetration and regulatory content depth, particularly relevant for US regional and super-regional carriers managing multi-state compliance obligations
• Continued investment in cloud delivery under the On-Demand SaaS model, addressing some of the legacy concerns associated with earlier on-premises deployments

These are real strengths. For a mid-to-large US carrier undertaking a core systems transformation, Duck Creek is a credible candidate that deserves evaluation. The platform is where it is because it delivered value to the segment it was designed for.

Duck Creek's Limitations for MGAs, Brokers, and Mid-Market Insurers

The limitations of Duck Creek in a non-carrier context are not subtle. They flow directly from the architectural and commercial decisions made when the platform was designed for a specific buyer profile. When buyers outside that profile evaluate Duck Creek, the mismatch manifests across several dimensions.

Implementation Timelines Are Not MGA-Compatible

A Duck Creek Claims implementation at a carrier of meaningful size typically requires six to twelve months for a focused deployment and eighteen months to three years for a full suite implementation (Policy, Billing, Claims together). These timelines are driven by the platform's architectural complexity, the data migration requirements from legacy systems, the configuration work required to adapt Duck Creek's carrier-centric defaults to a specific organisation's workflows, and the coordination overhead involved in managing a three-way relationship between the insurer, Duck Creek, and a systems integrator.

For a growing MGA or a TPA expanding its book of business, an eighteen-month implementation timeline is not just inconvenient — it is a strategic problem. The market does not wait. Capacity providers do not pause their delegated authority assessments while your systems catch up. The MGA that commits to a Duck Creek implementation today is operating on its current infrastructure for another one to two years before seeing any operational benefit from the new platform.

Document AI and Communications Are Third-Party Dependencies

One of the most significant capability gaps in Duck Creek for modern claims operations is the absence of native document AI and communications management. Duck Creek Claims manages the claims workflow — task management, reserving, payment, closure — but the intelligent processing of incoming documents (extracting structured data from email-attached PDFs, adjuster reports, medical records, and loss photographs) requires third-party integration with a separate document AI platform.

The same is true for structured claimant and broker communications management. If you want to automate acknowledgment letters, status updates, and settlement communications from within the claims workflow, that requires integration with an external communications tool.

In 2026, these capabilities are not optional enhancements. They are operational requirements for any claims function competing on efficiency. Building and maintaining these integrations adds cost, adds technical complexity, and creates dependencies on additional vendors and their pricing models.

System Integrator Dependency Adds Cost and Risk

Duck Creek implementations almost invariably involve a systems integrator. The SI brings Duck Creek technical expertise that most client organisations do not have internally, and for a carrier-scale implementation, that expertise is valuable. But the SI also adds cost — SI fees commonly represent the largest single line item in a Duck Creek implementation budget — and adds coordination complexity that extends timelines and creates project governance challenges.

Mid-market organisations without dedicated programme management functions frequently struggle with the three-way governance relationship between themselves, Duck Creek, and the SI. Scope creep, timeline slippage, and cost overruns are common outcomes. These are not exceptional cases in enterprise software implementation — they are predictable patterns that the industry has documented extensively.

MGA-Specific Workflows Are Not Native

Managing general agents operate with a workflow structure that is fundamentally different from a carrier. The MGA holds delegated authority from one or more capacity providers, operates across multiple carrier relationships simultaneously, manages bordereaux reporting to each capacity provider in the format and frequency they require, and often delegates some claims handling to TPAs while retaining oversight. None of this workflow is native to Duck Creek, which was designed with a single carrier at the operational centre.

MGAs that implement Duck Creek typically spend significant customisation budget building the features that Regure provides out of the box. That customisation adds implementation time, creates upgrade complications (custom code must be re-tested and sometimes reworked with each platform upgrade), and often produces a suboptimal result compared to a platform designed natively for the MGA operating model.

Pricing and TCO Are Carrier-Scale Economics

Duck Creek's commercial model reflects its carrier-scale design. Licence fees, SI costs, and ongoing support fees combine into a total cost of ownership that is challenging to justify for organisations writing less than several hundred million in premium. For an MGA writing £20–50M or a TPA operating on a service-fee model, the Duck Creek cost structure frequently fails a basic return on investment test.

Regure's Positioning: Built for the Segment Duck Creek Underserves

Regure was designed from the outset for MGAs, brokers, TPAs, and mid-market insurers — the organisations that need operational claims capability, document automation, and workflow management without the complexity and cost of an enterprise carrier platform. The architectural philosophy is integration over assembly: rather than providing a claims module that must be connected to separate document AI, communications, workflow, and audit trail tools, Regure builds all of these capabilities into a single platform.

The Regure claims automation platform handles FNOL intake, document processing, claim classification, handler assignment, workflow management, and claimant communications within a single operational system. There is no separate document AI vendor to integrate, no separate communications platform to connect, and no separate audit trail system to maintain. This architectural unity reduces both operational cost and technical risk.

For the MGA-specific use case, Regure provides native support for delegated authority operations: multi-carrier claim management, bordereaux-compatible data structures, and the distributed collaboration workflows that characterise MGA operations. These are not customisations built on top of a carrier-centric platform — they are design requirements that shaped the platform from the beginning.

Comparison: Regure vs Duck Creek Claims

The following comparison addresses the dimensions that matter most in a platform selection decision for mid-market buyers. It is intended to be accurate and honest rather than promotional.

Implementation Time

Duck Creek Claims: 6–18 months for a standard implementation. Full suite implementations run 18 months to 3 years. These timelines reflect platform complexity, data migration requirements, configuration overhead, and SI coordination.

Regure: 4–12 weeks for standard deployments. The platform is configurable without requiring SI involvement for most mid-market deployments, and data migration from common legacy systems is handled by Regure's implementation team directly.

Target Market

Duck Creek is designed for mid-to-large P&C carriers with established IT functions and multi-year transformation budgets. Regure is designed for MGAs, TPAs, brokers with claims-handling responsibilities, and emerging carriers.

Document AI

Duck Creek requires third-party integration for intelligent document processing. This adds vendor cost, integration complexity, and ongoing maintenance overhead. Regure includes document AI as a native platform capability, processing incoming documents automatically and surfacing extracted data within the claims workflow.

Native Communications

Duck Creek requires integration with external tools for structured claimant and broker correspondence management. Regure includes communications management natively, with automated acknowledgments, status updates, and configurable correspondence templates built into the claims workflow.

Total Cost of Ownership

Duck Creek TCO for a mid-market implementation typically runs significantly higher due to SI fees, licence structure, and ongoing support costs designed for carrier-scale economics. Regure is priced for the mid-market, with models appropriate for MGAs and TPAs and pricing that scales with business volume rather than requiring a fixed carrier-scale commitment.

MGA and Delegated Authority Workflows

Duck Creek requires material customisation to support MGA-specific workflows. Regure supports delegated authority operations natively, including multi-carrier management and bordereaux-compatible data management.

Audit Trail and Compliance Evidence

Both platforms provide audit trail capability. Regure's audit trail is designed specifically for regulatory evidence requirements — including FCA Consumer Duty obligations for UK-regulated brokers — and is surfaced as a first-class operational tool rather than a background logging system. Every action on every document, communication, and claim record is captured with timestamp, user identity, and full context, in a form that can be retrieved and presented to regulators or capacity providers on demand.

Support Model

Duck Creek implementations are typically supported through the SI relationship as well as Duck Creek support. For mid-market organisations, this means the first point of contact for implementation issues is often the SI rather than the platform vendor. Regure provides direct implementation support without SI intermediation, which reduces cost and simplifies accountability.

When Duck Creek Is the Right Choice

Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging that Duck Creek is the better choice for certain buyers. If your organisation is a mid-to-large P&C carrier with the following characteristics, Duck Creek warrants serious evaluation:

• Writing several hundred million in annual premium, with the revenue base to justify carrier-scale software economics
• Employing a dedicated IT function with programme management capability and the capacity to absorb a multi-year transformation project
• Operating primarily in North American markets where Duck Creek's pre-built regulatory content provides real implementation value
• Seeking to replace a legacy policy, billing, and claims stack in a single vendor relationship, where the integrated suite architecture provides a genuine advantage over a best-of-breed approach
• With a multi-year technology roadmap that can accommodate an extended implementation timeline before realising operational benefits

In this context, Duck Creek's breadth, configurability, established SI network, and North American regulatory depth make it a credible choice alongside Guidewire and other tier-one platforms.

When Regure Is the Right Choice

The case for Regure is strong when the following factors are present:

• You are an MGA, TPA, or delegated authority broker who needs claims and document management capability that supports your specific operational model, not a carrier-centric platform adapted for your use case
• You need to be operational in weeks, not months or years, because the market you are competing in does not accommodate long implementation timelines
• You need integrated document AI to handle the volume and variety of incoming claim documents without building and maintaining a separate integration with a third-party document processing vendor
• You need a platform whose total cost of ownership is proportionate to your revenue base, without carrier-scale licence fees, mandatory SI involvement, and open-ended customisation costs
• You have regulatory compliance requirements — FCA Consumer Duty, Lloyd's performance management, capacity provider audit requirements — that require a robust, retrievable audit trail as a first-class operational capability
• You have looked at the Duck Creek implementation timeline and cost structure and concluded that the investment is not proportionate to your current scale or near-term growth trajectory

A Decision Framework

Platform selection decisions at this level benefit from a structured set of questions that cut through brand recognition and analyst positioning to the operational realities that actually determine success:

1. Does the platform's design architecture match our operational model? A carrier-centric platform will always require more customisation for MGA or TPA operations than a platform designed natively for those models.
2. Can we absorb the implementation timeline? Time to operational benefit is a real cost. A platform that takes 18 months to implement when you need capability in 3 months has a hidden cost that does not appear in the licence comparison.
3. Are the capabilities we need native or integrated? Every integration is a point of failure, a maintenance overhead, and a vendor relationship to manage. Platforms where the capabilities you need are native reduce operational complexity in ways that compound over time.
4. What does five-year total cost of ownership look like? Licence fees are the visible cost. SI fees, customisation costs, upgrade costs, ongoing support, and the internal resource cost of managing the platform relationship are often larger than the licence itself.
5. Who will own this platform day-to-day? A platform that requires a dedicated IT function to configure and maintain is a poor fit for an MGA or TPA where claims and operations leadership are the primary platform owners.

For most MGAs, TPAs, and mid-market insurers, honest answers to these questions point toward Regure. For large carriers with the capacity and budget for an enterprise transformation, Duck Creek remains competitive. The decision should follow the honest answers, not the familiarity of a name that appears in analyst reports.

If you are evaluating claims platform options for an MGA, TPA, or broker operation and want to see exactly what Regure delivers — including how the platform handles FNOL intake, document processing, workflow management, and audit trail generation in a live environment — book a Regure demo. The demonstration is structured around the operational workflows that matter for your type of organisation, so you can assess fit directly against your specific requirements rather than extrapolating from generic platform capabilities.