U.S.-based Encova Insurance has hired insurance-focused software provider Sapiens International in order to automate its regression testing capabilities and to accelerate a number of major software upgrades.
The move reflects a growing demand across the insurance sector for more impactful quality assurance tools, primarily to keep pace with regulatory and market pressures the sector faces.
The multi-year deal centres on Sapiens’ new Automated Testing Services (ATS), which Encova began implementing in April of this year and will use for its October upgrade of Sapiens’ CoreSuite for Workers’ Compensation software.
ATS is designed to reduce testing cycles, enhance repeatability, and improve software quality by combining pre-built regression suites, updated with each new release, with customised test cases tailored to Encova’s business operations.
“Sapiens’ Automated Testing Services is the latest example of how they proactively empower us to modernise our operations,” stressed Ramu Lingala, since May of this year executive vice president and chief information officer at Encova.
“This will reduce our testing effort, improve the quality of our releases, and free us up for business-critical and strategic priorities,” he added.
Meanwhile, Roni Al-Dor, president and the CEO of Sapiens, positioned ATS as a tool not just for cost savings, but for resilience and speed.
“By reducing the time and resources required for testing and improving software quality, ATS will enable our client to upgrade more frequently, respond faster to market demands, and enhance their operational resilience,” he claimed.
The collaboration comes at a time when insurers and banks are under increasing pressure to modernise QA practices. The European Union’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which came into force in Januari of this year, requires financial institutions to demonstrate robust testing and monitoring of their IT systems, with particular emphasis on third-party risk.
Similarly, the EU AI Act introduced obligations for firms deploying AI-driven decision-making, including explainability and reliability of underlying systems.
While Encova is a U.S.-based mutual insurance group, regulatory standards are converging internationally, with U.S. supervisors such as the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency signalling similar priorities around resilience, software integrity and vendor management.
Automated regression testing is increasingly seen as a way to meet these obligations without stretching internal QA teams to breaking point.
Growing market for packaged automation
Sapiens, headquartered in Holon, Israel, provides software solutions for insurers worldwide, spanning core systems, data, and digital platforms.
Meanwhile, Encova, based in Columbus, Ohio, operates as a super-regional carrier offering commercial, auto, home, and life insurance products. The partnership extends a relationship that already includes deployment of Sapiens’ CoreSuite for Workers’ Compensation at Encova.
For QA teams, the Encova project highlights the shift towards packaged automation services that combine pre-built test libraries with flexible, client-specific scenarios.
Unlike generic test automation frameworks, ATS updates its regression suite with every software release, reducing the lag that often slows down upgrade cycles.
This approach reflects a broader trend in financial services technology: vendors are embedding automation directly into their platforms, rather than leaving QA teams to build and maintain their own scripts.
Analysts note that the rise of agentic AI, synthetic data generation, and self-updating test environments is likely to reshape testing models further in the coming years. For now, however, automated regression remains the backbone of resilience testing in regulated industries.
For banks, insurers, and asset managers, the Encova-Sapiens partnership illustrates how automation can relieve pressure on overstretched QA departments.
Manual regression testing during upgrades is both time-intensive and prone to human error, particularly where multiple legacy systems and third-party vendors are involved. By automating these processes, firms can increase release frequency without sacrificing reliability, a key requirement as they respond to both competitive and compliance demands.
Encova’s adoption of ATS suggests that insurers are following the lead of large banks in turning to third-party automation solutions. In financial services more broadly, QA leaders are now weighing not just efficiency gains but also the extent to which automated testing can provide the auditability and traceability regulators demand under frameworks like DORA.
QA FINANCIAL PODCASTS
Listen to Sudeepta Guchhait on Nasdaq’s new Mimic AI testing platform
QA Financial sits down with Sudeepta Guchhait, Senior Director of Product Framework & Quality Engineering at Nasdaq
——–
Listen to Wesley Scheffel and Robin Rain on Schroders’ DevOps strategy
We catch up with Wesley Scheffel, Head of Cloud Platform and Product Engineering at Schroders, and Robin Rain, Head of Cloud Platform Architecture
——–
Listen to Citi’s Jason Morris on Lightspeed and the future of continuous delivery
Jason Morris, Head of Developer Pipelines for Securities Markets and Banking at Citi, talks about Lightspeed
THIS NOVEMBER
Why not become a QA Financial subscriber?
It’s entirely FREE
* Receive our weekly newsletter every Wednesday * Get priority invitations to our Forum events *
REGULATION & COMPLIANCE
Looking for more news on regulations and compliance requirements driving developments in software quality engineering at financial firms? Visit our dedicated Regulation & Compliance page here.
READ MORE
- UK plan broadens AI testing burden for banks
- Banks confront rising agentic AI testing challenge
- Testing turns ‘reactive’ as documentation lags
- Inside UBS’s landmark testing challenge
- Bank of England raises the testing bar for frontier AI
WATCH NOW
