9 ways legacy pricing tools hinder agility

If your competitors can build and iterate on pricing models faster than you, they’re already quoting and binding business while you're still waiting for deployment. Despite investment in pricing platforms, many insurers remain bogged down by spreadsheets, manual deployments, and IT barriers. According to the State of Pricing 2024, 84% of actuaries say their tools aren't future-ready, and one third say they are losing business because their pricing systems can’t keep pace with the rapidly evolving risk landscape.

So what’s standing in the way of agility and how can insurers fix it?

The actuarial bottleneck

Building a pricing model should be a step towards growth, profitability, and speed, not a blocker. It should support timely decision-making, empower underwriters, and unlock new market opportunities. But for many insurers, it’s a slow, painful process that drains actuarial capacity and delays business outcomes.

Actuarial teams, with strong technical and analytical skills, are exceptionally talented at building sophisticated models and calculations. However, with legacy tools, they are not often in control of how, or when, these models are deployed to underwriters.

Bogged down by restrictive tools and cumbersome deployment processes, model builds delay responses to brokers and restrict agility. Tools that should be enabling actuaries to work smartly and efficiently become burdensome, stifling innovation and frustrating those closest to the risk.

What makes pricing model development so slow?

Many insurers are still using legacy solutions such as Excel. Although it is familiar, they often face roadblocks that hamper efficiency and agility:

Excel-based raters do not support the full pricing journey

From data handling to deploying models and monitoring, Excel falls short of covering the end-to-end needs of modern pricing teams.

Poor scalability for large and complex datasets

Excel isn’t built to handle the volume and complexity of insurance data, leading to performance issues and limits on analysis.

Manual processes introduce errors and delays

Manual processes like data entry and managing multiple file versions cause confusion, increase the risk of errors and make change tracking and auditing difficult.

Difficult to maintain and debug

Hidden sheets, nested formulas, and VBA macros make models fragile and hard to review or update confidently.

Lack of automation

Limited automation makes it hard to run portfolio simulations, which are essential for effective testing and validation.

Limited support for advanced analytics

More sophisticated pricing techniques are difficult or impossible to implement in Excel.

Poor integration with core systems

Without seamless integration to underwriting platforms or policy admin systems, manual workarounds delay development.

Slow deployment due to IT bottlenecks

Even small model changes often require time-consuming IT involvement, preventing agile updates and slowing time-to-market.

Basic user interfaces reduce underwriter adoption

Spreadsheets aren’t built for usability, which can reduce adoption among underwriting teams.

When updates are delayed, underwriters often resort to building “parallel tools”—quick-fix spreadsheets or calculators that replicate or bypass the official pricing model. While these tools may help speed up quoting in the short term, they create serious issues: inconsistent pricing logic, loss of central control, and difficulty maintaining governance.

hx Renew provides pricing and actuarial agility

hx Renew is designed to eliminate the barriers that slow down pricing model development. It gives actuaries a modern, modular toolkit that streamlines every step—from build and deployment to iteration—while enabling underwriters to price with confidence. hx Renew accelerates model development through:

• Out-of-the-box components: Use templates and reusable logic to reduce build time exponentially

• Reusable modules: Standardise core logic and apply it across multiple models

• Automated database creation: Automatically access and orchestrate historical, 3rd party and portfolio data

• Full audit trails: Every adjustment is logged automatically for transparency, collaboration and compliance

• System integrations: Connect seamlessly with internal systems, workbenches, policy admin systems and external data sources to keep everything live and in sync

• User-friendly underwriter interfaces: Improve adoption with fast, intuitive tools that are rapid to deploy

hx Renew provides a smarter foundation for actuarial teams. Its modular approach means models are built from flexible, interchangeable components. This makes it easier to scale logic across lines, manage changes efficiently, and reduce duplication - without losing power or flexibility to handle even the most complex problem scenarios.

It also empowers actuaries to make changes quickly—without waiting for lengthy deployment processes or IT intervention. Meanwhile, IT retains full control through embedded governance, version control, and security features.

Speed, a real strategic asset

Speed in pricing is more than operational efficiency. It’s a strategic lever.

With hx Renew, insurers can:

• Enter markets faster with launch-ready pricing models

• Adapt quickly to new data, risk factors, or competitive pressures

• Reduce delivery bottlenecks and free up actuarial resources for high-value work

• Empower underwriters with tools that support faster quote turnaround, better risk selection, and increased win rates

Better tooling means fewer workarounds. Underwriters can quote with confidence, collaborate more effectively with pricing teams, and deliver decisions faster—directly impacting growth and profitability.

hx Renew also helps insurers build long-term intellectual property. As teams reuse and evolve components, they create a library of proprietary pricing logic that reflects their unique risk appetite and market approach. This accumulated IP becomes a strategic asset—difficult to replicate and increasingly valuable over time.

When insurers can build, maintain, and iterate on pricing models swiftly—without sacrificing accuracy or control—they not only compete more effectively, they lead.

Press the accelerator on model development

Spreadsheets and slow workflows aren’t built for today’s market. They delay delivery, dilute insight, and create risk. hx Renew eliminates these barriers, helping insurers build pricing models faster, adapt in real time, and unlock long-term value.

Discover how AVIVA GCS used hx Renew to build 20 pricing models in Python, all in just 9 months. The full story details how AVIVA GCS pivoted away from slow, unstable Excel-based raters, all the while equipping actuaries with much-needed Python skills to future-proof and modernise pricing tools.