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How to evaluate renewal and RFP software.
A marketed employer renewal runs the same ten steps whatever you use to run it. Software for this market differs on two things: how many of those steps it takes responsibility for, and who it is built to answer to. This is a guide to both, written by one of the vendors in it.
Three different jobs, often compared as one.
Most tools a benefits team will look at fall into one of three groups. They are not competing versions of the same product. They solve different parts of the problem, and the right one depends on how much of your book you actually take to market.
Quoting tools (CPQ)
Configure, price and quote software. Strongest on community rated small group, where carrier rate data can return hundreds of plan options for a group, with comparison and a presentation on top. If most of your book is small group and you are not running RFPs, this is the most direct fit and usually the lowest cost.
Placement networks
A shared workspace between brokers and a set of participating carriers. Carriers hold accounts, submit quotes and negotiate inside the network. That produces a tighter carrier experience on the lines and partners inside it, and it means a carrier has to join before you can place with them there.
End-to-end renewal applications
The renewal and marketing workflow from renewal open to plans in force. The application is responsible for the steps; your team reviews, advises and decides at each one. Carriers do not need accounts. The fit tracks how much of your book goes to market each year. Plansight is in this group.
Ask who the software answers to.
Features get matched eventually. How a company earns its revenue does not change, and it decides what the product optimises for. There are two models in this market, and the trade-off is real in both directions.
Carrier-funded
Carriers participate, and the network is funded on that side of the table. The upside is a genuinely tighter carrier experience: structured submissions, negotiation in one place, and data the broker never has to chase. The constraint is that the carrier has to be a participant before you can place with them there, which shapes which markets you can take a group to.
Broker-funded
The brokerage pays a subscription and no carrier does. There is no participation agreement and no panel, so any carrier, any line and any funding type stays available, and a carrier who is not in the system yet can be invited. The constraint is the mirror image: no structured carrier-side workflow, so the application has to do the reading and normalizing itself.
The ten steps of a marketed renewal.
This is the sequence, start to finish. Whatever you use, every one of these steps happens. The only question is whether the application is responsible for it or your team is.
The first two columns are typical coverage by approach, not a claim about any one product. The Plansight column is our own product, and you can hold us to it. Ask any vendor to walk their product across these ten steps. The answer is usually more useful than a feature list.
Step nine is the one most tools skip.
Questions worth asking any vendor.
These separate the three approaches faster than a demo does, and they work on us as well as anyone else.
Who pays you?
Broker subscription, carrier participation, or both. Everything else about the product follows from the answer.
Does a carrier need an account before I can use them?
If yes, ask which carriers are in, which lines, and what happens when a client wants one that is not.
Where does the workflow start?
At the quote, at the RFP, or at renewal open. Anything before the starting point stays manual.
Where does it end?
At the presentation, at the sold plan, or at plans in force. Most stop at the sale.
What do I re-enter next year?
Ask to see a second renewal, not a first. The second one is where carried-forward data shows up or does not.
Who reads the carrier documents?
The application or your team. If it is the application, ask for the accuracy rate and how it was measured.
What happens to a small group?
Community rated groups price off a rating engine, not an RFP. Ask whether both paths end in the same presentation.
What does it do after the sale?
Enrollment handoff, AMS push, and whether anyone checks the issued policy against what was sold.
Where Plansight fits.
Common questions
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Plansight is paid for by the brokerage on a subscription. There is no carrier revenue model, no participation agreement and no panel, so nothing in the application has a reason to steer a group toward one carrier over another.
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Carriers do not need an account. Every RFP goes out with a secure upload link, the carrier drags the quote in, and it lands in your task list already read and normalized. Small group rates come through a live data connection. The trade is deliberate: no restriction on which carriers you can use, and no waiting on a carrier to join a platform.
No. Current plans are read and normalized against the renewal automatically, and next year's presentation is populated the moment this year's plans are selected. Saved census versions carry forward on small group.
No. The deployed book is strongest in the 15 to 500 life range, and community rated small group is priced straight off the rating engine with the same presentation at the end as a marketed renewal.
It tracks how much of your book goes to market each year rather than how many groups you have. The ten steps begin when an RFP goes out, so a book that is renewed as-is has little for the application to run.