Case Study - From In-House Tool to Multi-Million Dollar SaaS Platform

The Challenge

In late 2018, Dustin Parker owned a commercial and personal lines insurance company facing a common industry problem: his personal lines team was drowning in manual work, collecting data from prospects just to generate quotes for home and auto insurance.

Dustin had partnered with a Dallas-based development company to build a prototype digital form solution, powered by his concept of "360° protection"—a model ensuring customers were truly covered based on their needs, not just an apples-to-apples migration from another carrier. Casey Hege was launching this as a digital agency called SALT (Secure Auto Liability Trust).

The problem? Nobody was connecting the dots. The offshore development team, the marketing team promoting the digital agency, and the actual insurance team trying to use the system were all speaking different languages. The prototype existed, but it wasn't working for anyone.

Our Approach

I joined initially as a consultant to bridge these gaps. Casey and I worked through the prototype's issues and optimized the marketing approach throughout early 2019. But as we dug deeper, we saw something bigger.

The pivot: SALT didn't have to be just an in-house tool for one insurance company. The independent agent insurance market desperately needed modern data intake solutions. We could serve hundreds of agencies facing the same problems Dustin had identified.

My engagement evolved from fractional CTO/CPO to leading a full product development pod. Working alongside Casey and Dustin, we:

• Audited what we had: A simple prototype with good bones but limited scalability
• Defined what we wanted: A robust SaaS platform that could serve the entire independent agent market
• Mapped the roadmap: Clear path from prototype to enterprise-ready platform

I brought in a team of designers and engineers to transform the prototype into a security-focused, highly customizable data intake platform.

What We Built

A Ruby on Rails monolith designed for highly customizable insurance-niche forms that solves complex industry challenges:

Core Platform Features

• Customizable form builder for any insurance product type (home, auto, commercial, specialty lines)
• 360° protection model built into the data collection flow
• Security-first architecture meeting insurance industry compliance requirements
• Multi-tenant SaaS infrastructure supporting hundreds of independent agencies

Technical Innovations

• Translation systems that take data in a central format and convert it to the expected formats of multiple comparative rater integrations (like Vertafore and others)
• Custom hook systems allowing clients to extend functionality without touching core code
• Comparative rater integrations automatically routing application data to insurance platforms

The Result

What started as a prototype for one agency became the infrastructure powering digital transformation across the independent insurance agent market.

The Outcome

Today, SALT is a thriving insurtech platform:

• 350+ customers across the independent insurance agent market
• $1M+ ARR milestone achieved
• $3.2M in funding from VCs and angel investors
• Enterprise clients including some of the largest independent agencies in the nation
• Continued expansion with strong product-market fit

The Impact

SALT transformed how independent insurance agents collect prospect data and generate quotes. Agencies that once spent hours manually gathering information now have a streamlined, professional digital experience that:

• Reduces quote turnaround time from days to minutes
• Ensures data accuracy through guided flows
• Improves conversion rates with better user experience
• Scales with agency growth without adding administrative overhead

Key Learnings

Start with the problem, not the solution. We didn't start by planning a SaaS platform—we started by deeply understanding the pain points of insurance agencies and their prospects.

Bridge the gaps. The technical solution was only part of the challenge. Success required aligning technical teams, marketing efforts, and sales needs—ensuring everyone understood the vision and their role in it.

Know when to pivot. The courage to evolve from an in-house tool to a SaaS platform came from listening to the market and recognizing a bigger opportunity. That pivot made all the difference.