Every employer with a benefits package goes through a renewal and marketing process every year. For most brokers, this process is still performed almost entirely by hand — and it consumes far more time than most people realize.
This guide walks through exactly what the renewal and marketing process looks like today, what it looks like with Plansight, and what the difference means in real hours and real dollars.
A note on time estimates: All figures in this guide reflect active broker working time only — not elapsed calendar time. Employer delays, carrier turnaround windows, and scheduling add additional days or weeks that are not captured here.
The Problem
Renewals Are a Time Machine Running in Reverse
The annual renewal and marketing cycle spans medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and voluntary products. For every account, every year, brokers must:
- Collect and organize renewal documents from multiple carriers
- Prepare and update complex multi-tab spreadsheet presentations
- Manually enter plan data, rates, and attributes line by line
- Build and send RFP packages to competing carriers
- Chase carrier responses with no visibility into engagement
- Enter every competing proposal into the client presentation by hand
- Check formulas, verify accuracy, model contribution scenarios
- Present to the client, handle what-ifs, finalize elections
This process repeats for every account, every year. And the time adds up fast.
Small Group Employers
The Manual Process: Small Group
Small group employers (typically under 50 employees) use community-rated medical plans through the ACA marketplace. A typical client carries 3-4 benefit lines.
Renewal Phase
Even if the client doesn't go to market, the broker must receive renewals, organize documents, build the presentation, review it, and meet with the client.
Manual Process
Receive medical renewal5-10 min
Receive ancillary renewals5-10 min
Save & organize documents5-10 min/doc
Prepare prior year presentation30-40 min
Build renewal presentation45-60 min
Review comparison5-15 min
Client meeting45-90 min
Renewal Total2.25-4 hrs
With Plansight
Receive medical renewal~0 min
Receive ancillary renewals~0 min
Save & organize documents~0 min
Prepare prior year presentation~0 min
Build renewal presentationUnder 5 min
Review comparison5-15 min
Client meeting45-90 min
Renewal Total1-2 hrs
Marketing Phase
When a client decides to explore alternatives, a second phase begins — census collection, RFP distribution, proposal entry, quality checks, and more meetings.
Manual Process
Census collection20-30 min
Gather RFP documents20-30 min
Pull alternative medical plans20-30 min
Build & send RFP emails15-20 min
Manage proposals & follow-up15-30 min
Enter medical quotes45-75 min
Enter ancillary quotes60-90 min
Final quality check30-60 min
Client presentation60-90 min
What-if scenarios20-40 min/ea
Plan selection & binding15-30 min
Marketing Total3-5.5 hrs
With Plansight
Census collection~0-5 min
Gather RFP documents~0 min
Pull alternative medical plans5-10 min
Build & send RFP emails5-10 min
Manage proposals & follow-up5-10 min
Enter medical quotes (AI)5-15 min QA
Enter ancillary quotes (AI)5-15 min QA
Final quality check15-25 min
Client presentation60-90 min
What-if scenarios5-10 min
Plan selection & binding5 min
Marketing Total1.25-2 hrs
Small Group Total: A process requiring 5.25-9.5 hours of active broker time per account is reduced to 2.25-4 hours with Plansight. That's approximately 4.25 hours saved per account.
Large Group Employers
The Manual Process: Large Group
Large group employers (100-500 employees) carry more complex benefits packages with 5+ benefit lines. The critical difference:
Large group medical plans are experience-rated. Premiums are based on the group's own claims history. This means medical goes to market every single year, without exception. The marketing phase is not optional.
The renewal phase mirrors small group. The marketing phase is more complex — requiring claims experience data, more comprehensive RFP packages, and more detailed proposal analysis.
| Phase | Manual | Plansight | Saved |
|---|
| Renewal Phase | 2.25-4 hrs | 1-2 hrs | 1.25-2 hrs |
| Marketing Phase | 4-7 hrs | 1.5-2.5 hrs | 2.5-4.5 hrs |
| Total per Account | 6.25-11 hrs | 2.5-4.5 hrs | 3.75-6.5 hrs |
Large Group Total: At a midpoint savings of approximately 5 hours per account, a broker with 50 large group accounts recovers approximately 250 hours of capacity per renewal cycle.
The Solution
What Plansight Actually Does
Plansight doesn't change what brokers do. It changes how long it takes.
The strategy, relationships, recommendations, and judgment all stay with the broker. What Plansight removes is the administrative work surrounding those activities.
Automated by Plansight
- Proactive carrier outreach for renewals — every account, every carrier, on schedule
- Document storage and organization — automatic filing as carriers submit
- Prior year presentation preparation — no workbooks to clean up
- Renewal presentation building — guided flow, under 5 minutes
- Census collection via Employee Navigator integration
- RFP document assembly — built from documents already in the platform
- Single-click carrier distribution — right carriers, right products, automatically
- Live carrier engagement tracking — see who opened, downloaded, or submitted
- AI-powered proposal extraction (SmartSheeting) — data entry done, broker does QA
- Real-time what-if modeling — contribution changes recalculate instantly in the meeting
- One-click plan election and carrier notification
Still Done by the Broker
- Reviewing the side-by-side comparison — your judgment, your expertise
- Client consultation meetings — your relationship, your recommendations
- QA review of AI-extracted proposals — you verify, you approve
The broker who uses Plansight for three renewal cycles isn't just saving time on the third cycle. They're operating with three years of clean, organized, platform-managed data that makes every client interaction faster, more accurate, and more professionally presented.
The Numbers
What This Means at Scale
| Account Type | Manual | Plansight | Saved |
|---|
| Small group (renewal only) | 2.25-4 hrs | 1-2 hrs | 1.25-2 hrs |
| Small group (renewal + marketing) | 5.25-9.5 hrs | 2.25-4 hrs | 3-5.5 hrs |
| Large group (renewal only) | 2.25-4 hrs | 1-2 hrs | 1.25-2 hrs |
| Large group (renewal + marketing) | 6.25-11 hrs | 2.5-4.5 hrs | 3.75-6.5 hrs |
Applied across a real book of business:
425
Hours recovered from 100 small group accounts
250
Hours recovered from 50 large group accounts
675+
Total hours recovered per year
675 hours is approximately four months of full-time administrative work. That's time currently spent on portal navigation, spreadsheet management, document filing, formula checking, and carrier follow-up.
Every one of those hours returned is time that can be redirected toward growing the book, deepening client relationships, taking on more accounts without adding headcount, or simply running a more sustainable practice.
Return on Investment
The Math Speaks for Itself
At a fully loaded labor cost of $43 per hour — a conservative estimate including salary, benefits, and overhead — 675 hours of recovered capacity represents approximately $29,000 in annual labor value returned to the brokerage.
$29K
Annual labor value recovered
2-4x
Return on investment
675+
Hours returned to your team
Flexible Pricing
Plansight offers two pricing models to fit how your team operates:
Per Employer Group
Annual per-group pricing
Scales with your book size
Volume discounts available
Best for high-volume brokerages
Per User — $299/mo
$3,588 per user annually
1,500 docs/year per user included
Flat cost regardless of book size
Best for smaller teams getting started
The bottom line: For every dollar invested in Plansight, brokerages recover between $2 and $4 in labor value. That return compounds every renewal cycle — and the platform gets more valuable the longer you use it.
