7 Takeaways on the State of Observability in Financial Services and Insurance

Peter Pezaris
New Relic
Learn more about New Relic

In 2023, New Relic conducted a study to learn more about observability’s impact on businesses and the technical professionals behind them. The observability forecast surveyed professionals across numerous industries and geographic locations to better understand the current state of observability. Of the 1,700 tech practitioners and decision makers surveyed, 176 were associated with the financial and insurance industries.

This year, New Relic published the State of Observability for Financial Services and Insurance Report to share insights derived from the 2023 Observability Forecast on the adoption and business value of observability across the financial services industry (FSI) and insurance sectors.


Source: New Relic

Here are seven key takeaways from the report:

1. Observability is Critical to Top Technology Strategies and Trends

Companies are learning the importance of investing in observability, with 54% of financial and insurance organizations reporting that the need for observability stems from an increased focus on security, governance, risk, and compliance given the complex regulatory requirements in the industry. Other drivers included shifting to a multi-cloud environment (43%), adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (40%), and development of cloud-native application architectures (38%).

2. Observability Adoption is Gaining Momentum

To better manage complex offerings, 38% of financial institutions have already deployed full-stack observability. Financial services and insurance organizations have also widely adopted observability capabilities within backend monitoring, with 75% applying infrastructure monitoring and 63% utilizing application performance monitoring (APM). In the next two years, 93% of respondents expected to have deployed infrastructure monitoring, and 89% expected to have adopted APM.

3. Organizations Prefer a Unified View of their Tech Stacks

Financial and insurance companies aim to reduce the number of observability tools used with over half of respondents (52%) reporting a preference for a consolidated platform. However, 43% of respondents still considered their telemetry data siloed. With that said, 42% shared that their organization is likely to adopt a more consolidated approach for observability tools in the next year. Over the past year, the proportion of financial and insurance companies using a single tool has grown from .3% to 4.5% — a 15-fold increase.

4. Managing Outages and Decreasing Cost Requires Observability

Time is of the essence when resolving high-business-impact outages, with more than a third (35%) of financial services and insurance respondents reporting a loss of more than $500,000 per hour. Of the respondents who reported a mean time to detect (MTTD) of 30 minutes or less, 51% had adopted full-stack observability, and 64% of those who utilize full-stack observability said that mean time to resolve (MTTR) has improved.

5. Successful Tech Stack Monitoring Comes at a Cost

Respondents from financial and insurance organizations reported higher spending on observability tools than other industries, with nearly half (49%) spending $500,000 or more per year on observability, and 31% dishing out $1 million or more per year.

6. Observability Enhances Business Success

Organization values increased as a result of observability investments, with over half (52%) reporting more than $500,000, and 41% noting a total value of $1 million or more. Nearly half (47%) of IT decision makers said observability helps them to achieve business key performance indicators (KPIs), and 45% of practitioners reported increased productivity. Overall benefits of adopting an observability platform included improved system uptime and reliability (46%), increased operational efficiency (42%), and an improved real-user experience (31%).

7. The Future of Observability is Bright

Observability within the FSI and insurance industries will continue to rapidly grow in the coming years. An overwhelming majority of respondents (96%) expected to have deployed security monitoring in the next two years, followed by alerts and network monitoring (both 94%). In the next year, 42% said they planned to train staff on best practices for observability, and 43% predicted tool consolidation.

Peter Pezaris is Chief Design and Strategy Officer at New Relic
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7 Takeaways on the State of Observability in Financial Services and Insurance

Peter Pezaris
New Relic
Learn more about New Relic

In 2023, New Relic conducted a study to learn more about observability’s impact on businesses and the technical professionals behind them. The observability forecast surveyed professionals across numerous industries and geographic locations to better understand the current state of observability. Of the 1,700 tech practitioners and decision makers surveyed, 176 were associated with the financial and insurance industries.

This year, New Relic published the State of Observability for Financial Services and Insurance Report to share insights derived from the 2023 Observability Forecast on the adoption and business value of observability across the financial services industry (FSI) and insurance sectors.


Source: New Relic

Here are seven key takeaways from the report:

1. Observability is Critical to Top Technology Strategies and Trends

Companies are learning the importance of investing in observability, with 54% of financial and insurance organizations reporting that the need for observability stems from an increased focus on security, governance, risk, and compliance given the complex regulatory requirements in the industry. Other drivers included shifting to a multi-cloud environment (43%), adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (40%), and development of cloud-native application architectures (38%).

2. Observability Adoption is Gaining Momentum

To better manage complex offerings, 38% of financial institutions have already deployed full-stack observability. Financial services and insurance organizations have also widely adopted observability capabilities within backend monitoring, with 75% applying infrastructure monitoring and 63% utilizing application performance monitoring (APM). In the next two years, 93% of respondents expected to have deployed infrastructure monitoring, and 89% expected to have adopted APM.

3. Organizations Prefer a Unified View of their Tech Stacks

Financial and insurance companies aim to reduce the number of observability tools used with over half of respondents (52%) reporting a preference for a consolidated platform. However, 43% of respondents still considered their telemetry data siloed. With that said, 42% shared that their organization is likely to adopt a more consolidated approach for observability tools in the next year. Over the past year, the proportion of financial and insurance companies using a single tool has grown from .3% to 4.5% — a 15-fold increase.

4. Managing Outages and Decreasing Cost Requires Observability

Time is of the essence when resolving high-business-impact outages, with more than a third (35%) of financial services and insurance respondents reporting a loss of more than $500,000 per hour. Of the respondents who reported a mean time to detect (MTTD) of 30 minutes or less, 51% had adopted full-stack observability, and 64% of those who utilize full-stack observability said that mean time to resolve (MTTR) has improved.

5. Successful Tech Stack Monitoring Comes at a Cost

Respondents from financial and insurance organizations reported higher spending on observability tools than other industries, with nearly half (49%) spending $500,000 or more per year on observability, and 31% dishing out $1 million or more per year.

6. Observability Enhances Business Success

Organization values increased as a result of observability investments, with over half (52%) reporting more than $500,000, and 41% noting a total value of $1 million or more. Nearly half (47%) of IT decision makers said observability helps them to achieve business key performance indicators (KPIs), and 45% of practitioners reported increased productivity. Overall benefits of adopting an observability platform included improved system uptime and reliability (46%), increased operational efficiency (42%), and an improved real-user experience (31%).

7. The Future of Observability is Bright

Observability within the FSI and insurance industries will continue to rapidly grow in the coming years. An overwhelming majority of respondents (96%) expected to have deployed security monitoring in the next two years, followed by alerts and network monitoring (both 94%). In the next year, 42% said they planned to train staff on best practices for observability, and 43% predicted tool consolidation.

Peter Pezaris is Chief Design and Strategy Officer at New Relic
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Understanding Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: Why They Matter and How to Stay Protected

Cyber threats are growing more sophisticated every day, and at their forefront are zero-day vulnerabilities. These elusive security gaps are exploited before a fix becomes available, making them among the most dangerous threats in today's digital landscape ... This guide will explore what these vulnerabilities are, how they work, why they pose such a significant threat, and how modern organizations can stay protected ...

Data Center Outages Becoming Less Frequent

The prevention of data center outages continues to be a strategic priority for data center owners and operators. Infrastructure equipment has improved, but the complexity of modern architectures and evolving external threats presents new risks that operators must actively manage, according to the Data Center Outage Analysis 2025 from Uptime Institute ...

Instrumentation Score: Quantifying Telemetry Quality

As observability engineers, we navigate a sea of telemetry daily. We instrument our applications, configure collectors, and build dashboards, all in pursuit of understanding our complex distributed systems. Yet, amidst this flood of data, a critical question often remains unspoken, or at best, answered by gut feeling: "Is our telemetry actually good?" ... We're inviting you to participate in shaping a foundational element for better observability: the Instrumentation Score ...

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