4 Signs Your Bordereaux Process Is Holding Back Your Underwriting Team

You’re collecting the data. Exchanging spreadsheets. Reconciling rows, version after version. However, somewhere between collection and action, valuable insights are getting lost, and your underwriting performance is paying the price. 

If bordereaux reporting feels like a box to check instead of a lever to pull, you’re not alone. Many carriers, MGAs, and brokers are stuck in workflows that do just enough to get by, without unearthing the trends and performance signals that actually drive results. 

So, how do you know if your bordereaux process is holding your underwriting team back? 

Here are four red flags to watch for. 

1. You’re Always Waiting for Reports 

If your team relies on monthly, quarterly, or even ad-hoc bordereaux reports to spot trends, you’re reacting too late. By the time data is cleaned, formatted, and passed along, performance issues may already be impacting your loss ratios or portfolio mix. 

What to do instead: Shift from delayed reports to real-time analysis. With automated ingestion and validation, underwriting teams can see emerging patterns (e.g. increasing claims severity or underperforming exposures) before they turn into bigger problems. 

2. Performance Analysis Stops at the Aggregate Level 

Many bordereaux reports only summarize binder performance at the top line: total premium, total claims, total exposure. While helpful for a snapshot, this bird’s-eye view hides risk-level nuance that underwriters need to improve pricing and binder management. 

What to do instead: Drill down. Analyze performance by individual risk, class of business, broker partner, or geography. Binder-level insights should go beyond “what happened” to answer why it happened. 

3. Manual Processes Are Eating Up Your Time 

If your team is manually formatting spreadsheets, reconciling columns, and emailing corrections back and forth, you’re not just wasting time, you’re introducing errors and slowing your ability to act. Underwriters should be spending their time on analysis, not admin. 

What to do instead: Automate the tedious parts. Modern bordereaux platforms can handle validation, mapping, and ingestion, freeing up underwriters to focus on performance, not processing. 

4. Data Quality Issues Keep Repeating 

When bordereaux arrives late, incomplete, or incorrectly formatted, you’re left playing data detective instead of making underwriting decisions. Worse, recurring data issues are often accepted as “just the way it is.” 

What to do instead: Build governance into the process. Define rules for data formatting, automate error detection, and establish accountability across the delegated authority chain. Clean data isn’t optional; it’s foundational. 

It’s Not About More Data, but Rather Better Use of the Data You Have 

Bordereaux isn’t just a reporting obligation—it’s a strategic opportunity. However, it’s only a strategy opportunity if you can structure it, trust it, and act on it. 

Together with VIPR Solutions, our experienced Insurtech team helps insurance organizations modernize their bordereaux operations, from automated ingestion and validation to real-time analytics and actionable insights. Whether you’re a carrier, MGA, broker, or reinsurer, we bring the technology, data expertise, and industry know-how to eliminate friction and turn your bordereaux into a performance engine. 

If you’re ready to move beyond manual workarounds and unlock the full value of the data you’re already collecting, reach out to our experts today.