5 Best Practices for Delivering Employer-Ready Benefits Proposals Efficiently with Quote+

Delivering compelling proposals is critical to winning and retaining business. However, crafting employer-ready, professional benefits proposals — without spending hours formatting spreadsheets or manually calculating costs — can be a challenge without the right tools. 

A well-structured proposal builds trust, simplifies decision-making, and positions you as a valuable advisor. With increasing competition and evolving employer expectations, brokers need a streamlined process that delivers clear, polished, and actionable proposals quickly.

The good news? Optimizing your proposal process doesn’t have to be complicated. By following these five best practices, your benefits agency can make your proposals more professional, persuasive, and easy to act on without the extra hassle.

Best Practice #1: Make Your Proposal Look Professional & Branded

Any group benefits proposal your agency creates should reflect your expertise and credibility. A well-designed, professionally branded document instantly builds trust and will help your proposal stand out from the crowd.

Employers evaluate benefits brokers across multiple criteria, including their ability to present information clearly and professionally. By implementing best practices for managing group benefits proposals, you demonstrate your commitment to excellence and attention to detail — qualities that resonate strongly with potential clients.

Best Practice #2: Use Side-by-Side Plan Comparisons to Simplify Decision-Making

Accelerate decisions by putting the options side by side for an easy comparison. Employers can quickly identify differences between your proposed plans, compare them against their current coverage, and make informed choices with confidence. This approach not only simplifies the selection process but also demonstrates your expertise, positioning you as a trusted advisor in the benefits field.

Use technology to make this process as simple as clicking a button. A small group benefits proposal tool, like Quote+, can quickly generate side-by-side comparison proposals without the mess of extra spreadsheets and headaches. This allows you to export the right data the first time and create an employer-ready proposal without extra hassle. 

It comes down to this: straightforward side-by-side comparisons help to reduce confusion and ensure employers understand why the coverage they’re choosing is the best option. 

Best Practice #3: Highlight Employer Contributions for Cost Transparency

Transparency is key when​​ presenting proposals to employer groups — especially when it comes to costs. Many employers focus on total plan costs. However, they also want to understand how their contributions affect their employees. Highlighting these contributions can help employers make informed decisions about their upcoming benefits coverage. 

Define these contributions within the proposal to showcase how the employer is contributing to each proposed plan versus their current coverage. Use technology, like Quote+, to build those contributions in and efficiently calculate the effect. 

Best Practice #4: Provide Age-Banded Rate Tables for Clarity

Integrity Data explains age-banded rates as: “for different ages of the employee there is an incremental increase in the monthly health deduction. For example employees between age 20 and 29 are offered a plan costing $95.00 per month. An employee from 30- 39, the cost is $150.00.”

Age-banded plans are commonplace in group benefits, but manually extracting rates from spreadsheets and contacting carriers for comprehensive comparisons can be incredibly time-consuming. This tedious process often leads to errors and inefficiencies when building the final proposal for employers. 

By including clear, age-banded rate tables, you're providing employers with a valuable tool to easily reference costs for different age groups. This transparency is crucial as it allows decision-makers to quickly understand how age demographics impact overall plan costs. Implementing this best practice streamlines your workflow and demonstrates your commitment to clarity and precision. It's a win-win situation that saves you time and provides employers with the detailed information they need to make informed decisions.

Again, technology can play a pivotal role here. A​​ solution that can shop age-banded rates and present them easily could be a game-changer for your proposal process. AgencyBloc’s Quote+ solution gives you full access to shop these quotes and include them on proposals, removing extra work and saving your team serious time.

Best Practice #5: Deliver a Clean, Employer-Ready Proposal

Everything has been leading up to this: an employer-ready proposal. But it’s not always that easy. 

Delivering a polished, client-ready group benefits proposal efficiently can be challenging. Brokers spend 10+ hours per small group collecting employer/employee data, shopping quotes, building proposals, and supporting enrollment. Using the right technology, like Quote+, can drastically reduce this time-intensive lift.

Brokers shouldn’t have to spend extra time formatting documents or doing manual calculations. A streamlined, professional proposal process wins business and builds trust while saving time and resources. 

Posted by Allison Babberl on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 in Small Group Benefits Proposal Software

1. client retention
2. productivity
3. quoting
4. selling