Insurers spend a huge amount of time analysing pricing performance across price comparison websites. When results don’t line up, the instinct is usually to look at appetite, price position, or competitor behaviour.
But in a growing number of cases, the issue sits somewhere far less visible.
We spoke to Tim Stout, Head of Growth and Innovation at Consumer Intelligence, about why some of the most commercially damaging PCW issues never appear clearly in internal data, and why many insurers are often surprised by what comes to light when mappings are analysed properly.
This matters for insurers because price does not live in isolation. It is shaped by assumptions, conditions and trade-offs that are rarely visible when a single number is put front and centre.
The most common theme is confusion. Teams can see that performance differs by PCW, but they can’t explain why. Pricing strategy hasn’t changed, appetite looks consistent, and yet one channel underperforms.
In a lot of cases, the cause isn’t pricing at all. It’s a mapping issue that sits quietly in the background and only affects a subset of risks, often on a single PCW.
They’re usually small, unglamorous things. A value being recorded differently on one PCW. A default behaving in a way nobody expects. A rule that was added during a test and never fully removed.
Individually, these issues don’t look dramatic. But when they affect pricing, quotability, or ranking, the commercial impact adds up very quickly.
The key is running identical risks concurrently across all PCWs. Using our Data Mappings Diagnostic methodology, we compare three things side by side: what was input, what the insurer stored on their back end, and what outcome came back.
That’s when the invisible becomes visible. You can see exactly where values diverge, whether it’s caused by mappings, logic, or historic rules, and what impact it has on performance.
Two things. First, how often the issue has nothing to do with pricing intent. Second, how long some of these issues have been live without anyone realising.
Once clients can see the problem clearly, the conversation changes. It’s no longer about guessing or debating theory. It becomes a practical discussion about what’s worth fixing, what should be documented, and what can safely be left alone.
That unexplained PCW underperformance is rarely random. If something looks odd and you can’t explain it, there’s usually a reason.
Sometimes the biggest gains don’t come from new pricing strategies, but from fixing the things you didn’t know were broken.