From manual bordereaux to trading agility

Pricing can now change daily, but trading infrastructure hasn’t kept pace. Matt Wellman of Applied Systems explains why manual bordereaux must go.

In the UK personal lines market, speed has become the competitive test. Recent Insurance Age research on MGA pricing found firms moving to weekly – and, in some cases, daily – rate changes, supported by richer data and live management information fed straight back into pricing engines.

The same analysis exposed an awkward gap. A rate change routed through broker software houses takes six to eight weeks to reach the market, against five minutes on insurer-hosted pricing. The pricing decision may be fast, but the trading infrastructure underneath it has not kept up.

Manual bordereaux are a large part of that gap. These detailed reports tracking policies, premiums and claims have long been a staple for managing complex insurance products. They offered flexibility in accommodating bespoke contracts across legacy systems. Today, they are seen as slow and costly to run. More importantly, they limit how quickly an insurer or MGA can trade.

Why manual bordereaux no longer meet industry needs

Manual bordereaux demand significant labour and are susceptible to mistakes during data entry, inconsistent reporting formats and slow processing times. These inefficiencies delay premium reconciliation, claims settlements and risk assessments, ultimately hampering an insurer’s or MGA’s ability to respond quickly in a competitive market.

Limited audit trails and potential data security gaps expose businesses to regulatory risks – a growing concern as the FCA’s expectations around data and Consumer Duty evidence rise.

Historically, manual bordereaux allowed brokers and MGAs to highlight critical underwriting or claims data tailored to unique business needs. But they cannot deliver the accuracy or speed that personal lines trading now requires. The market expects standardised, transparent and timely data sharing, and manual methods struggle to provide it.

Why automation pays

The market expects standardised, transparent and timely data sharing, and manual bordereaux methods struggle to provide it.

Matt Wellman, senior director, enterprise accounts and insurer relationships, Applied Systems Europe

Automated bordereaux processing reduces the scope for human error, enforces consistent data formats and accelerates premium and claims reporting. That means premiums and claims are reconciled sooner, which improves cashflow. Insurers and MGAs benefit from cost savings by reducing manual labour and cutting down on time spent correcting errors or resolving disputes.

Automation also improves integration across underwriting, claims and finance systems, supporting advanced analytics and real-time insight. Automated data exchange gives brokers and reinsurers timely, consistent data they can rely on. As business grows, automated platforms handle rising volumes and allow flexible responses to regulatory changes and market demands without needing to add headcount at the same rate.

The digital opportunity: one connection, full-cycle trading

One way to address the bordereaux problem is to rethink the connection between brokers, MGAs and insurers, rather than the reporting itself. Instead of each firm building and maintaining a separate integration for every insurer it trades with, brokers and MGAs can connect once to a shared rating and trading service that is already linked to an insurer panel.

Through that single connection, firms can trade the full policy cycle, from new business and mid-term adjustments to renewals and cancellations, electronically with multiple insurers in one automated workflow. Business that was previously handled manually through bordereaux becomes structured EDI messages. This takes the labour-intensive work out of the process altogether rather than simply speeding it up, and it is an approach increasingly being called for in UK personal lines.

Because data moves in real time through one standardised channel, underwriting decisions, claims handling and financial reporting can all move faster. Common data formats and validation rules are applied at the point of connection, so data stays consistent and accurate, and reconciliation problems are reduced. Audit trails and compliance controls can also be built into the connection itself, which helps firms evidence their regulatory obligations, including under the Consumer Duty.

The benefit is not only efficiency, but speed. MGAs consistently report that their delays come from waiting on external decisions and builds, rather than from internal capability. A connection that already links to the insurer panel, with the rules and standards in place, takes that wait out of the equation.

Closing the gap

Most MGAs have invested heavily in pricing agility. Trading agility depends far more on the infrastructure they connect to, and it is now the constraint. Manual bordereaux are the clearest example: every reconciliation cycle that runs on spreadsheets and email is a cycle in which a rate decision sits waiting for administration to catch up.

Beyond the cost and compliance benefits, automated trading closes the distance between the decision an underwriting team takes and the price a broker sees. For personal lines firms, that distance is now where the competitive advantage lies.

Applied Rating Hub connects brokers and MGAs with more than 30 UK insurers through a single automated rating and trading workflow.

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