If you work in insurance, Excel is likely a core part of how your team operates. From rating models and pricing tools to underwriting workbooks and actuarial analysis, it supports many of the processes you rely on every day.
You might be considering an Insurtech platform to bring more structure to those processes. At the same time, you may be finding that rebuilding your models takes significant effort, or that adapting the platform to your specific workflows requires more time, higher costs, and ongoing involvement from IT.
Many MGAs, carriers, and underwriting teams attempt to move away from Excel and end up investing heavily in platforms that do not fully align with how their models are built or maintained. Rather than solving the problem, this often introduces new layers of complexity while limiting the flexibility that teams depend on.
Instead of replacing Excel, the focus should be on addressing the challenges around how it is used, while strengthening security, control, and accessibility.
Why Insurance Teams Continue to Use Excel for Rating and Underwriting
Excel supports the way insurance teams actually work.
Your rating models evolve as underwriting guidelines shift, new products are introduced, and market conditions change. Actuarial teams refine assumptions, update loss factors, and test scenarios on an ongoing basis. Excel allows you to make these updates quickly and keep moving without relying on IT or long development cycles.
For MGAs and underwriting teams, speed to market is critical. Launching a new product or adjusting pricing often cannot wait on a full platform rebuild. Excel makes it possible to respond quickly while maintaining control over the logic behind your decisions.
You have also invested in these models over time. They reflect your underwriting expertise, pricing strategy, and historical data, and they have already been validated across your business. That foundation makes Excel difficult to step away from, especially when alternative approaches require recreating that logic from scratch.
In many cases, Excel also remains the faster and more cost-effective way to support ongoing changes, particularly when compared to larger platform implementations.
Where Challenges Start to Appear
As your use of Excel grows, the coordination required to manage it increases as well.
You may find yourself working across multiple versions of rating models or underwriting tools, which makes it harder to ensure consistency across teams. This becomes especially important when different underwriters or distribution partners are using slightly different versions of the same logic.
Sharing files can also introduce risk. Rating models often contain proprietary logic, pricing strategies, and sensitive data that should not be widely distributed or exposed.
See how Amlin reduced the risk & cost of using spreadsheets with EASA: Learn More
Access is another challenge. Agents, brokers, or internal teams may need to run quotes or scenarios, which often leads to spreadsheets being emailed, downloaded, or stored in shared environments. These approaches can work, though they require manual oversight and create opportunities for errors or misuse.
For actuarial and underwriting teams, this can create additional friction when trying to maintain control, ensure accuracy, and track how models are being used.
A Better Approach for Insurance Teams Using Excel
Rather than replacing Excel, many insurance teams focus on improving how it is used.
This includes creating a more controlled way to access rating and underwriting models, ensuring everyone is working from the same version, and connecting those models to other systems such as policy administration platforms, CRM systems, and agent portals without introducing dependency on IT for every change.
Platforms like EASA support this approach by allowing you to turn your existing Excel models into secure, web-based applications. Your spreadsheet remains the core model, while underwriters, agents, and other users interact with it through a controlled interface.
See how Zurich used EASA to deploy rating spreadsheets with database integration: Learn More
In addition, the data generated from these models does not have to stay locked in Excel. Inputs, outputs, and historical records are stored in a centralized database, giving you a structured way to track submissions, quotes, and decisions over time. This is especially valuable for MGAs and underwriting teams that want better visibility into performance, auditability, and reporting.
Because these applications can integrate with other systems, you can connect your models directly to CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot, policy systems, or internal data sources. This allows data to flow between systems without manual re-entry and helps ensure consistency across your workflows.
You can also extend your models with AI-driven capabilities, such as pre-filling applications, assisting with underwriting decisions, or analyzing historical data to surface insights, all while keeping your core Excel logic intact.
See how Insurance teams are already using EASA: Watch Now
This allows you to:
- Keep a single, centralized version of your rating or underwriting model
- Provide access to agents, brokers, or internal teams without sharing the underlying spreadsheet
- Store inputs, outputs, and historical data in a structured database for reporting and audit purposes
- Connect your models to CRM systems, policy platforms, and other tools
- Incorporate AI to streamline data entry and enhance decision-making
- Make updates quickly as pricing or underwriting guidelines change, without relying on IT
- Avoid the cost and time required to rebuild complex actuarial models
Improving Insurance Workflows Without Replacing Excel
You do not need to move away from Excel to improve how your team works.
By building on the models you already trust and introducing more structure around how they are accessed, connected, and managed, you can reduce risk, improve consistency, and support growth in a way that aligns with how MGAs, underwriters, and actuarial teams actually operate.
See how insurance teams are turning Excel models into secure, scalable applications
Book a demo to see how you can give underwriters, agents, and teams controlled access to your models without rebuilding them.