Who Should Own the Fix When Shadow Spreadsheets Replace Your System?
The Ownership Question Every Reinsurer Avoids Until It's Forced To Answer It
A shadow spreadsheet replacing the system of record is rarely anyone's fault in particular, which is exactly why it's rarely anyone's job to fix. Underwriting assumes it's a claims issue. Claims assumes finance is handling it. IT assumes it's a business process problem outside its remit. The spreadsheet keeps running in the meantime, and the question of who actually owns fixing it goes unanswered until a discrepancy forces the issue.
Who Should Actually Own This Problem?
Ownership belongs with a role that has authority across every function where a shadow spreadsheet might be operating, not with any single department that only sees its own corner of the issue.
That's a narrower list than it first appears. Most department heads can only speak to their own team's habits, which means the fix needs someone positioned to see the pattern across underwriting, claims, and finance simultaneously, and with enough authority to require a shared solution rather than three separate ones.
Why Doesn't This Work as an IT-Only Responsibility?
It doesn't work because IT's mandate typically covers the official system's security and functionality, not the business reasons a team chooses a spreadsheet over that system in the first place.
What Does IT Actually Control in This Situation?
IT controls whether the official system is available, secure, and technically capable of doing what's asked of it.
What IT doesn't control is whether a claims adjuster finds the official system's reporting view inconvenient enough to build a personal tracker instead. That's a workflow and incentive question, and fixing it requires someone with authority over how that adjuster's job is actually structured, not just over the software they're supposed to use.
What Does This Mean for Department Heads?
It means a department head can eliminate the spreadsheet from their own team's workflow but has no visibility into, or authority over, similar habits developing in an adjacent function.
A claims leader might successfully retire a spreadsheet within claims, only to find a nearly identical one still active in underwriting, built independently to solve a similar gap. Without cross-functional ownership, these fixes stay isolated and the underlying pattern keeps repeating.
What Kind of Role Should Take This On?
A COO or CTO, or a dedicated data governance lead reporting to one of them, is generally the right fit, since the role needs both visibility across functions and the standing to require a shared solution.
| Candidate Owner | Strength | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| IT department | Controls the official system | Can't change upstream business incentives |
| Individual department head | Deep visibility into one team | No cross-functional view |
| COO / CTO | Cross-functional authority | Needs department cooperation to execute |
| Dedicated data governance lead | Focused mandate | Needs executive backing to have real authority |
The London Market Group's work extending core data standards to treaty reinsurance required exactly this kind of cross-functional coordination, involving 68 organizations precisely because no single function could resolve version and standard misalignment on its own.
Is This a One-Time Fix or an Ongoing Mandate?
It's ongoing. Any time the official system develops even a small gap, a new shadow spreadsheet can appear to fill it, so the ownership needs a standing mandate rather than a single cleanup project.
A Reinsurance Treaty Analysis AI Agent supports that ongoing mandate well, since it keeps the treaty analysis view inside the governed system rich enough that fewer new gaps open up for staff to work around in the first place.
How Should This Ownership Be Tested in Practice?
The simplest test is asking staff, on a recurring basis, which spreadsheets or personal trackers they still rely on outside the official system, and treating any answer as a live gap that needs addressing.
If that question has a clear, accountable owner who acts on the answers, the organization has genuinely solved the ownership problem. If the question never gets asked, or gets asked without anyone following up, the ownership gap is still there, whether or not a shadow spreadsheet has been spotted yet.
The technology to fix a shadow spreadsheet problem is rarely the hard part. The hard part is deciding, clearly and in advance, whose job it is to notice when one starts to matter, and giving that person the authority to actually act on what they find.
Frequently Asked Questions
Whose problem is it when a shadow spreadsheet has replaced the system of record?
It belongs to whichever executive role has authority across the functions where the spreadsheet is being used, since the fix requires changing behavior in more than one team at once.
Why can't this be left to IT alone?
IT can secure and maintain the official system, but it can't unilaterally change why staff in underwriting or claims prefer a spreadsheet, since that preference is usually a business process gap, not a technical one.
Why can't this be left to individual department heads?
Each department head only sees their own team's spreadsheet use, so no individual department head has visibility into how widespread or interconnected the problem actually is across the organization.
What role is best positioned to own this?
A COO or CTO with cross-functional authority is usually best positioned, since they can see the pattern across departments and have the mandate to require a shared fix rather than isolated ones.
Should this be treated as a one-time project or an ongoing responsibility?
It should be ongoing, since new shadow spreadsheets can appear as soon as the official system develops a new gap, so the ownership needs a standing mandate rather than a single cleanup effort.
How should ownership be measured or held accountable?
Accountability works best when tied to a concrete, recurring check, such as periodically surveying staff about which spreadsheets they still rely on outside the official system.
What happens if no one is clearly accountable for this?
Without clear accountability, shadow spreadsheets tend to persist indefinitely, since no single team feels responsible for a problem that only becomes visible when viewed across the whole organization.
Does this ownership question apply the same way to smaller reinsurers?
Yes. Smaller reinsurers may have fewer spreadsheets in play, but the same lack of cross-functional ownership lets them persist just as easily as at larger organizations.
