Across the insurance industry, pricing remains one of the last major functions to fully modernise. While data volumes have grown and analytical techniques have advanced, many insurers still rely on spreadsheet-heavy workflows, fragmented models and manual processes that slow decision-making and limit visibility. As competition intensifies and margins tighten, these legacy approaches are increasingly becoming a barrier to growth.
Insurers are now under pressure to price risk more accurately, respond faster to market change and build pricing strategies that can scale. Doing so requires more than incremental improvements — it demands a fundamental shift toward automation, transparency and advanced analytics.
This is the challenge James River Insurance set out to address when it began rethinking its pricing operations. The company called on Akur8 to provide a solution.
From manual complexity to modern pricing foundations
When Randy Compton joined James River as AVP of Data Science & Analytics, the insurer’s pricing environment reflected a familiar industry reality.
Modelling work was spread across Python scripts, Jupyter notebooks and disconnected files, making collaboration difficult and governance cumbersome. Updating models required significant manual effort, and scaling analytics across the business was a constant challenge.
Recognising that these limitations would restrict future growth, James River began searching for a more robust and purpose-built solution. The company ultimately turned to Akur8, whose pricing platform is designed specifically to help insurers replace manual workflows with automated, data-driven modelling.
By adopting Akur8, James River was able to centralise its pricing activity into a single environment, bringing consistency and structure to the modelling process.
Teams gained the ability to manage champion and challenger models more efficiently, automate outputs, and remove reliance on spreadsheets and ad hoc processes.
“If we change the model, hit a few buttons, what comes out is what our IT department needs,” he said.
The impact was immediate. Processes that once required extensive coordination could now be executed quickly and reliably. Errors were reduced, model governance improved, and the organisation gained a scalable foundation for future pricing innovation.
Turning analytics into a competitive advantage
Beyond operational efficiency, the partnership with Akur8 has enabled James River to take a more sophisticated approach to risk pricing.
Moving away from traditional ISO-based methodologies, the insurer is now building technical pricing models that better reflect real-world exposure and loss experience.
This shift allows James River to evaluate risks with greater precision and move toward experience-based rating, where policies that appear similar on the surface can be priced according to their true underlying risk. The result is improved underwriting discipline, stronger portfolio performance and greater confidence in pricing decisions.
For Compton, the return on investment from pricing modernisation is clear. Automation accelerates submission review, enables faster decision-making and allows underwriters to focus on higher-value work. At the same time, improved pricing accuracy supports long-term profitability.
Crucially, he stresses that pricing transformation is not purely a technical exercise. Success depends on collaboration across actuarial, underwriting and operational teams, with technology acting as the enabler rather than the driver.
“Every policy can be a profitable policy,” he said.
With Akur8 providing the analytical backbone, James River is demonstrating how insurers can modernise pricing in a practical, scalable way — turning data into insight, and insight into measurable commercial advantage.
Read the full blog from Akur8 here.
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