Closest thing to a crystal ball for renewal projections!
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
As an independent insurance broker, we use Zywave PlanAdvisor in our Benefits department. There are four components. The piece we use the most is the renewal projection. The renewal projection helps us anticipate the upcoming renewal rates for our clients. We review this with them mid-year to help with budgeting and planning purposes. It helps launch our renewal process so that employers are not caught off guard if their plan is not running well and a larger increase is projected. We also use this underwriting tool to negotiate with carriers in the marketing and renewal process. If used correctly, it has been very accurate at projecting upcoming renewal changes to rates.
Pros
- Renewal projection - forecasting renewal rates is accurate and has been very beneficial to our clients and business.
- Single period report is decent, but not as user friendly as we'd like it to be. It really only works with certain carriers.
Cons
- Single Period Report: We hoped it would be like a "DMW lite" but it is only usable with a few carriers, and it's clunky/time consuming to use. We stopped using it.
- Plan Modeler: It's a good idea, but we don't use it much. It needs more development and modeling options.
- Plan Selector: It's a good idea, but it's too time consuming to add the info. If we could import it easily, we'd use it much more.
Likelihood to Recommend
We utilize only one of the four components available because the other three are either too time consuming for what you get or just don't deliver what we need. The renewal estimator is the real star here and worth the cost of the tool (even if you don't use the other components, although we hope Zywave PlanAdvisor puts some money/time here to further develop them). It accurately projects renewals which help employers budget as they prepare for renewal. It is invaluable in our marketing and carrier negotiations because it is a an underwriting tool with the science and language that will speak to an underwriter... it's not a best guess, but accurate and respectable analytics.
