From pricing and reserving to risk assessment and capital modelling, Excel’s ubiquity has made it indispensable. But its limitations are becoming too obvious to ignore, according to to actuarial software firm Akur8. Long the default tool for actuaries, spreadsheets are increasingly being outmatched by the complexity and demands of modern insurance modelling.
Spreadsheets remain popular for good reason, they are accessible, flexible, and well-understood across industries.
They handle basic calculations, generate visualisations, and support straightforward analysis. But as actuarial models grow more sophisticated, with machine learning, complex statistical distributions, and scenario-based simulations, Excel begins to look dangerously outdated.
The Hidden Cost of Convenience
Beyond its technical limitations, Excel also brings significant operational risk. Many actuaries are familiar with chaotic folders full of spreadsheet versions: “final,” “final_updated,” “final_v2,” and inevitably, “final_corrected.”
Without robust version control, tracing model lineage is time-consuming and error-prone. Inputs and formulas change without record, audit trails are patchy at best, and manual errors can go undetected for months—if they’re caught at all.
Actuarial work demands transparency and traceability. And yet, one of its most commonly used tools lacks the basic safeguards found in software built for collaboration and compliance.
Time to Rethink the Toolkit
While Excel might seem cheap—especially compared to commercial actuarial software—the hidden costs are substantial. Lost time, miscalculations, reputational risk, and compliance gaps all take a toll.
Modern actuarial platforms, like those offered by Akur8, offer a different path. These systems are built for today’s actuarial workloads:
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Advanced analytics like GLMs, clustering, and machine learning, all with no-code interfaces
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Robust version control, with logged changes and auditable model histories
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Improved data governance, ensuring inputs, assumptions, and outputs are fully transparent
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Collaboration at scale, enabling teams across geographies to work in real time
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Embedded quality control, with updates maintained by dedicated software teams
The Future of Actuarial Modelling
Spreadsheets won’t disappear overnight, nor should they. They’ll remain useful for simple tasks and quick analyses. But when it comes to critical modeling work—particularly in regulated industries like insurance—it’s no longer enough.
There’s a growing consensus that spreadsheets are a poor fit for the scale, complexity, and governance needs of modern actuarial science. Tools purpose-built for the discipline are not only more capable—they’re also safer, more scalable, and ultimately more economical.
In actuarial work, the risks are high and the stakes are real. It may be time to rethink the spreadsheet.
Read the full blog from Akur8 here.
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