The Key to Maximizing Brokerage Technology ROI: Eliminate Manual Workflows

One of the greatest challenges we’re seeing Employee Benefits firms face is decision fatigue with new technology.

Teams are tired of constantly migrating to the “latest, greatest” solution, when they’re not sure if anyone will actually use it. 

It's understandable. Many of the tech solutions in the benefits space still require account managers and operations teams to manually input data into other systems. A typical workflow looks like this:

1. You receive the quote from the carrier - you can spread the data with a quoting tool, but you manually copy numbers into Excel, then to a deck, and then back to a spreadsheet. 
2. Even if you used a quoting tool at the start, to send sold confirmations after final decisions are made - you manually type numbers into an email you send to the client/carrier.
3. To create benefit communications material before Open Enrollment - you manually type those same numbers into guides / PDFs in a sprint after groups delay final decisions.

Technology is great, but if the data still needs to be transferred multiple times between tools during renewals, there’s less incentive to use it.

What sets PlanYear apart is that our founders experienced this pain firsthand while running a brokerage firm.

Like many brokerages, they had invested in technology. But the tools they invested in often remained unused. They tested various quoting tools and AMS systems, and even attempted to build their own custom solution in Salesforce.com. But they soon found that if technology and tools create more work, they simply won’t provide ROI. 

What resulted is that PlanYear built a platform that makes it easier for individuals to do their normal workflows. The result? people use it, because it doesn’t create more work.

The greatest indicator of the success of PlanYear is that users find it valuable enough to return. The consistent trend we’re seeing is that nearly every user logs in multiple times after registering. 

Drop in your quotes, and PlanYear’s AI quote reader handles the plan spreading and contribution modeling, in client–ready formats you can still export. 

Sold confirmations? PlanYear creates them automatically in a ready-to-email format. 

Benefit guides? You have all the data already. What if that could be easily pushed into a branded microsite, without any custom coding? Go from final decisions to open enrollment in ~ 20 minutes (that’s our personal record, your mileage may vary).

Again, technology is great, and AI is some of the most exciting technology we’ve ever seen. It’s poised to potentially change everything. 

But if technology creates more work for the individual, nobody uses it. We found out the hard way, and with PlanYear, we took steps to fix it.

Want to learn more about the PlanYear AI-Powered Benefits Platform? Contact us now to learn how you can quickly modernize the employee benefits experience with PlanYear.