In the traditionally slow-moving insurance industry, Newfront stands out as a beacon of innovation. Serving over 5,000 businesses – from Silicon Valley unicorns to Fortune 500 enterprises – Newfront combines deep insurance expertise with cutting-edge AI to create a transparent, data-driven approach to risk management and employee benefits. Their platform empowers businesses to make smarter insurance decisions while giving employees 24/7 access to their benefits through an intuitive dashboard.
As Newfront expanded across diverse industries, it encountered a critical challenge. To deliver AI-powered insurance recommendations and benefits optimisation, they needed seamless access to employee rosters, benefits enrollment data, dependent information, and employer-sponsored benefit plans from their clients' various HRIS systems.
The complexity wasn't just about connecting to different platforms – it was about ensuring data completeness for their sophisticated analytics engine that powers personalized insurance recommendations.
Before Bindbee, Newfront's engineering team was trapped in an integration maze:
Development Bottlenecks: Each new enterprise client meant 8-12 weeks of custom integration development. Engineers who should have been building innovative features were instead decoding API documentation and handling edge cases for dozens of different HRIS platforms.
The API Coverage Gap: Many HRIS platforms either had limited API capabilities or locked critical benefits data behind legacy interfaces. Some exposed employee data through APIs but required manual exports for benefits information. Others had APIs so restrictive that getting comprehensive data was nearly impossible.
Scaling Nightmares: As Newfront grew to thousands of clients, the integration maintenance burden became exponential. Each HRIS update or API change meant revisiting multiple custom integrations. The company that prided itself on moving fast was being slowed down by integration quicksand.
Bindbee's Hybrid Approach
Bindbee delivered a comprehensive solution that acknowledged the messy reality of enterprise HRIS data:
Unified API for Modern Systems: For HRIS platforms with robust APIs, Bindbee's unified interface gave Newfront instant access to 50+ systems through a single integration point – standardized data models, consistent error handling, and predictable response formats.
SFTP-to-API Bridge: Here's where Bindbee went beyond typical unified APIs. Recognizing that many enterprise systems rely on SFTP for benefits data exports, we built a sophisticated ingestion system that:
Seamless Data Orchestration: Whether data came through REST APIs or daily SFTP drops, Bindbee's platform merged everything into a single, coherent data stream. Newfront's systems couldn't tell the difference – it all looked the same through Bindbee's unified interface.
This hybrid approach was particularly powerful for benefits information. While many HRIS APIs provided basic enrollment data, detailed plan configurations often lived in separate systems. Bindbee's SFTP ingestion captured these comprehensive benefits exports, ensuring Newfront had the complete picture.
From Integration Bottleneck to Competitive Moat
The transformation was immediate and measurable. By eliminating the integration bottleneck, Newfront's engineers returned to building revolutionary insurance technology. The company could finally move at the speed of innovation again.
The SFTP-to-API bridge became an unexpected differentiator. While competitors struggled with legacy systems or turned away clients with older HRIS platforms, Newfront could confidently say "yes" to any enterprise, regardless of their technical infrastructure.
Today, Newfront leverages Bindbee's hybrid solution to power AI-driven benefits optimization for thousands of companies. What started as a technical necessity has become a cornerstone of their platform.