Carrier quoting spreadsheet template.

How to set the template up

Build it as one workbook with four tabs, matching the column groups above. The reason for four tabs rather than one wide sheet is that each one has a different lifespan: the client information is written once, the census changes when the employer corrects it, quote tracking changes daily during the submission window, and the rate comparison is only built once the quotes are all in.

1. Client information. Company name exactly as it appears on the carrier paperwork, SIC or industry code, employee count, current carrier, renewal date and target effective date. Fill this in before anything else; half the fields on later tabs depend on it.
2. Census summary. Not the full census — a summary you can check a quote against: total employees, enrolled count, tier distribution, age bands and rating areas. Version it. When the employer sends a correction, save the new census under a new name rather than overwriting, because quotes already out the door were priced on the old one.
3. Quote tracking. One row per carrier per submission, with the dates and the contact. This is the tab that stops quotes disappearing into an inbox.
4. Rate comparison. One column per plan, with rates by coverage tier and an annualized total at the group's actual enrollment. Build it last, from the rate sheets, not from the proposal summary pages.

The column everyone forgets

Add assumed effective date to the quote tracking tab, and rate basis — composite or age-banded — to the rate comparison tab. Those two columns account for a large share of the comparisons that fall apart when a client's CFO checks the math. A quote priced for a later effective date, or quoted composite when the rest are age-banded, will usually look like the cheapest option on the sheet for reasons that have nothing to do with the plan.

A worked example: Ridgeline Components

Ridgeline Components Inc is the sample case Planlined ships with: a group renewing medical alongside dental, vision, life and disability. Run through the tabs in order.

1. Client information gets Ridgeline's legal name, its industry code, the renewal date and the target effective date.
2. The census summary is built from the employer's file, then reconciled against a recent carrier invoice. If the invoice bills more family tiers than the census lists, the census is wrong, and every quote you request on it will be wrong too.
3. Quote tracking gets one row per carrier as each submission goes out, with the census version noted in the row.
4. As quotes return, the rate comparison tab fills in: rates by tier, annualized at the enrollment counts you reconciled in step two.
5. The incumbent's renewal goes in as a column like any other, so the comparison shows what staying put costs.

What to check before you send the submission

• Every carrier is receiving the same census version, and you have recorded which one.
• The requested effective date is stated explicitly in the submission, not left for the carrier to infer.
• The current plan's SBC is attached, so the carrier can quote a match rather than guess at one.
• Any plans the employer has already ruled out are excluded, so you do not spend the window comparing options nobody will buy.
• The submission deadline you gave the carrier leaves room for a revised rate sheet before your client meeting.

Common mistakes

• Overwriting the census. The corrected file replaces the old one, quotes come back on two different bases, and nothing reconciles.
• Tracking quotes in email. Two carriers respond, three do not, and by the time you notice, the quiet ones cannot turn a quote around before the meeting.
• Building the rate comparison from proposal summary pages. Summary pages round, group tiers together and sometimes reflect a different contribution assumption. Use the rate sheet.
• Comparing monthly rates. Annualize at the group's actual tier counts; a plan can win on the rate card and lose on the bill.
• Rebuilding the workbook per case. Keep one blank master and copy it, so the columns stay the same and you can compare your own work across clients.

When the spreadsheet stops being enough

The tracker scales fine. The rate comparison tab is what breaks first — usually around the third carrier, or the first time a revised rate sheet lands two days before the meeting and every downstream number has to be retyped. At that point the question stops being "where do I put this data" and becomes "how do I stop re-keying it." Planlined reads the plan fields out of the carrier PDFs and shows each extracted value beside the page it came from, so the review step is checking rather than typing. From there, the same reviewed case produces the side-by-side comparison and the client-facing proposal, and there is no second copy of the numbers to keep in sync. What the product does and does not do is set out on product facts — it works from the quotes you already have and is not a quoting engine with carrier rate feeds.