The advantage of components is best explained through analogy; with automobiles, you don't have to understand how a starter works to use the ignition. Furthermore, parts suppliers make starters for different cars and it's not difficult to replace a starter. That is possible because the starters are standardized, and the interface (i.e., the ignition) is well known and isolates starting the car from other elements of the vehicle. It would be odd if turning on the radio used the same knob as starting the car.

The advantages of components are numerous. Component-based systems are more easily replaced, updated, and "rationalized," reducing the mass of systems that are functionally the same. Consider again the starter analogy. It's easy to replace a starter, and you don't have to replace the ignition to do so. You do not have to change the way you start your car when you replace the starter. Insurance components work exactly the same way, but our industry isn't (yet) as evolved as the automotive industry.

The first step towards this utopia is creating interfaces into the "back ends" of the components. A people component, for example, can have services to create, read, update, or delete parties within a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Creating a single interface for this component allows you to centralize, replace, and consolidate your people systems by establishing one way to gain access to person information.