Calliope Research · October 2026

Ninety-three broker RFPs.What the packet asks, and what the record already knows.

A study of public requests for proposals for employee-benefits brokerage and consulting, issued November 2025 through September 2026, matched against six years of filings and the carriers' own transparency indexes.

See the examplesHow to pitch

Private employers anonymized by sector and size. Public bodies named as the public record names them.

93RFPs across 33 states, 48 with the full packet
10%of packets name the incumbent broker
78%require full compensation disclosure, where addressed
90%accept or prefer a fee, where a model is stated
29 daysmedian from posting to proposals due
1 of 5incumbents retained where incumbent and winner are both known
Why this study

The RFP is a negotiation that starts with incomplete information.On both sides.

A benefits broker answering a public RFP has thirty days, a packet written by a procurement office, and a short Q&A window. The packet says what the issuer wants. It rarely says who has the business today, what they are paid, how the plan is funded, or what happened at the last two renewals. Most issuers decline to answer when asked.

The record says more than the packet. For private employers, six years of Form 5500 filings carry the broker of record, the compensation by line, the carriers, the stop-loss, and the funding structure. For public bodies, which file nothing, the carriers' published Transparency-in-Coverage indexes name the administrator and whether the plan is self-funded. This study pairs the two: what 93 issuers asked for, and what a bidder could have known before asking.

Two populations. Public bodies (68): cities, counties, school districts, public colleges, transit and housing authorities. Private employers that procure publicly (25): community action agencies, Head Start grantees, nonprofits, a charter network, tribal governments and enterprises. The second group files a 5500. The first does not.

01 · What they are asking for

Renewal marketing, compliance, communications.Then everything else.

Scope language is remarkably uniform. Half of all packets lead with marketing the renewal. The analytical work that distinguishes a consultant from a placer appears in a quarter to a third.

Scope of services named in 93 RFPs · November 2025 to September 2026Bars to scale, 5.06 px per RFP

What the scope section asks for.

Corpus count
Marketing / renewal negotiation48 · 52% Employee communications46 · 49% Compliance (ACA / ERISA / COBRA)42 · 45% Open enrollment34 · 37% Claims analytics / underwriting31 · 33% Wellness26 · 28% Ancillary lines21 · 23% Running vendor RFPs15 · 16% Stop-loss marketing13 · 14% Benchmarking12 · 13% PBM review12 · 13%
ReadLilac bars are the analytical services. They are the minority of what is asked for, and the majority of what wins.
How they score

Experience 31, cost 30, approach 25.

25 packets publish weighted criteria. Normalized to 100, the average split is experience and qualifications 31%, cost 30%, approach 25%, references 4%, everything else 10%. Cost is never below a fifth where it is weighted. Hawaii's EUTF scores fees 30, experience 40, terms 30 and prohibits commissions outright.

How they want to pay

Fee first, commission by election.

40 packets state a model: 14 fee only, 21 fee or commission at the bidder's election, 1 fee with commission offset, 4 commission only. The four commission-only RFPs are voluntary-benefits enroller searches by school districts and small counties in North Carolina and Georgia whose medical sits in the state plan. Yuma County asks for proposals net of commission with a credentialed actuary.

Disclosure language

Every override, contingent and bonus.

Of 41 packets that address broker compensation, 32 require disclosure of all of it. 15 of 38 use fiduciary, transparency or Consolidated Appropriations Act language. Port Orange requires an annual compensation report. The University of Maine System makes a disclosure form a condition of eligibility. Three tribal issuers demand it line by line.

Why they say they are bidding

Cost first, governance second.

Where a reason is given: cost containment 19, governance or financial-controls review 10, contract expiry 7, compliance 5. Pikes Peak Library District: “policy requires us to go out for bid every five years.” A charter network: “we have not successfully lowered costs.” One city lost its enrollment platform because the incumbent advisor owned it.

02 · What the packet leaves out

Who has the account, what they are paid,and how the plan is funded.

Nine packets or addenda name the incumbent broker. Thirty-one state the funding structure. Twenty-four name the carriers. Five disclose what the current broker is paid.

Issuers do not merely omit this; they decline it when asked. A federally chartered nonprofit refused six incumbent questions in a 56-question Q&A. Hawaii's trust fund declined to provide the incumbents' hours. A tribal health system answered with “the incumbent is meeting expectations.” A housing nonprofit volunteered only that “our current broker invoices us quarterly.”

Five facts a bidder needs93 RFPs
FactStated in packetWhere it turns up instead
Incumbent broker9 · 10%Schedule A of the 5500; board minutes of the prior award; a benefit guide attached as an exhibit
Funding structure31 · 33%Schedule A rows and the absence of a medical row; the carrier's transparency index
Carriers in place24 · 26%Same two sources
Current broker compensation5 · 5%Schedule A commission and fee by contract; a Q&A addendum when pressed (CCSNH disclosed $182,503 of 2025 commissions by carrier)
Headcount36 · 39%5500 participant counts; carrier census in the data room
03 · What the record shows anyway

For private employers, the filing names the broker.For public bodies, the carrier's index names the plan.

Ten representative examples. What the packet disclosed on the left, what six years of filings already said on the right, and how a bidder positions on the difference.

Community action agency · New Jersey · ~550 employees · self-fundedRFP, 2026 · award pending
RFP packet and Q&A

The RFP said

  • Employee benefits broker and consulting services, full scope.
  • Self-funded. Incumbent not named.
  • Full disclosure of commissions, overrides and contingents required.
Form 5500 · plan years 2020–2025

What Calliope already knew

  • The same regional brokerage every year since 2020, paid entirely by commission on the stop-loss contract.
  • Commission $158K → $231K → $322K in two years while headcount fell 10%.
  • Stop-loss Sun Life → HM Life → Sun Life in three years; the HM Life series reads as a possible administered program.
  • No Schedule C, so the TPA fee is invisible.
Broker commission, 2025
$322K
Per participant vs P75
$442 / $206
Stop-loss carriers, 3 yrs
3
How to positionQuote a fee against a known $322K, ask whether the plan sits in a program, and put the TPA contract on the table.
1 of 10
Public bodies · the carrier's index

25 of 68 matched. 21 administered, 4 insured.

Town of Apex, NC: Cigna ASO. City of Port Orange, FL: Florida Blue ASO. University of Maine System: Anthem ASO; the Capital Rx carve-out is not visible. Jordan School District, UT: PEHP-administered. Columbia Housing Authority, MO: UnitedHealthcare, insured. Effingham County, GA: Meritain, so self-funded though the packet never says so. Georgia and North Carolina school districts and California cities bid only ancillary lines because their medical sits in a state or CalPERS pool, and the index says so.

Private employers are described by sector, state and size only. Compensation benchmarks are Calliope's Schedule A and C distributions by covered-lives band, pooled 2020–2024. Figures are filing data as reported; they describe disclosure and process risk, not conduct.

04 · How the process runs

Thirty days, posted in spring,and the incumbent usually loses.

The median window from posting to due date is 29 days (quartiles 25 to 37; the shortest was 10). Two in three 2026 RFPs posted between April and July, timed to a January renewal. One in five holds a pre-proposal meeting. One in four publishes a Q&A addendum, and those addenda are where incumbents, claims and fees leak out. Only one RFP in the corpus was run by an outside consultant.

RFPs by issue month, January to September 2026n = 74 · 8 px per RFP

April through July: 51 of 74.

Corpus count
07.515 645159131453 JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSep
ReadA January 1 renewal sets the calendar. The bidder's research window is March.
Twelve traced awards · incumbent retained once where both names are knownCouncil and board minutes, intent-to-award notices, the next filing's Schedule A
IssuerAwarded toIncumbentRetained
Nonprofit transit operator, Ithaca NY (117 lives)Arthur J. Gallagher, June 2026, 9 proposalsBrown & Brown, 15 years (named on every filing, four entity names)No
Jordan School District, UTAlliant, October 2025Moreton & Company (2022 award)No
Town of Canton and Board of Education, CTUSI, December 2025Not named; minutes call USI the “new broker”No
Charter network, CA (~1,400 lives)IMA (read from the 2024 filing)Mercer (parent's filings 2020–2023)No
Columbia Housing Authority, MOAcrisure, August 2026, scored 48 / 45 / 41 of 60Acrisure (prior board packet)Yes
Town of Gilbert, AZ (~1,800 FTE)Brown & Brown, letter of intent September 2026; eight non-award lettersNot named (in place since 10/2023)Unknown
City of Durham, NCFoundation Risk Partners / Independent Benefits Advisors, $114,660 feeNot namedUnknown
Federally chartered nonprofit, DC (~700 lives)Gallagher, $630,591 fixed, 1 + 3 yearsWithheld in Q&A; $0 on filingsUnknown
City of Newport, KY (135 employees)AssuredPartners, July 2026Not namedUnknown
Hillsborough Area Regional Transit, FLGallagher, June 2026Not namedUnknown
Paulding County School District, GAMark III Brokerage, April 2026Not namedUnknown
Workforce board, Florida (109 lives)Apex Insurance Advisors, March 2026Not namedUnknown

Gallagher won three of twelve. Roughly 25 more RFPs closed between June and September 2026 with awards pending; four of them (El Paso County CO, CCSNH, Pikes Peak, Lovington NM) have named incumbents, so retention becomes knowable the day the winner posts.

05 · How to pitch

Answer the criteria they publish.Bring the facts they withheld.

The scoring tells you how to write. The record tells you what to say. A bidder who walks into the Q&A window already knowing the incumbent, the funding, the renewal trajectory and the compensation by line asks better questions than the eight firms reading the packet cold.

  1. Price as a fee, and show the math.Nine in ten issuers that state a model will take a fee. Where the filing shows the incumbent paid by commission above the band benchmark, quote both numbers.
  2. Volunteer the disclosure before the form asks.78% of packets that address compensation require every override and contingent. Make it the first exhibit.
  3. Lead the approach section with the account's own history.The mid-year carrier exit, the stop-loss carrier that flipped twice, the captive the RFP never mentions. Write the first page of approach about that.
  4. Use the Q&A window to surface what the record implies.Ask whether the plan participates in a captive. Ask who is paid on the ASO. The answers, or the refusals, go in the addendum every competitor reads.
  5. Match experience to the issuer's structure, not its sector.A self-funded agency with a bundled TPA wants references from unbundlings, not from other nonprofits.
The bidder brief · one page, built from the record before the packet is openedExample: community action agency, NJ

What the RFP says. What the filing shows. What to ask.

Calliope output
TopicRFP saysFiling showsAsk
Size“Approximately 550 employees”552 → 499 within 2025 (−10%)What drove the decline?
FundingSelf-fundedSince 2020; stop-loss Sun Life → HM Life → Sun LifeIs the plan in a program? Who places the stop-loss?
BrokerNot namedSame brokerage 2020–2025, 100% commissionIs the incumbent eligible to bid?
CompensationFull disclosure required$158K → $322K; $442 per participant vs P75 $206Fee quote net of all commission?
AdministrationNot statedNo Schedule C; TPA fee not visibleIs the TPA contract on the table?
ReadFive rows. Five questions the other bidders cannot ask.
Both sides of the table

A stronger bidder.A better-informed issuer.

Flow builds the bidder brief for any account in the corpus, and for the next RFP that posts. Plan Sponsor Companion helps the issuer's committee read the same record before the packet goes out.

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Companion access is invite-only.

Method and limits

How the corpus was built,and what it cannot say.

Filings are retrospective. Patterns aren't.The packet tells you what the issuer wants. The record tells you what they have. Bid from both.

RFPs were collected between October 1 and October 8, 2026 from procurement portals (BidNet, OpenGov, DemandStar, CivicIQ, Starbridge, Govly, HigherGov, state e-procurement sites) and directly from agency, district, nonprofit and tribal websites. Scope was limited to brokerage and consulting for group health and welfare benefits. 48 of 93 rows have the full packet on file. Awards were traced through council and board minutes, intent-to-award notices, bid tabulations and, for private employers, the next filing's Schedule A.

Private employers were matched to Form 5500 filings by EIN (plan years 2020 through 2025, as filed through September 2026) and to the Transparency-in-Coverage directory by EIN and name. Public bodies were matched to the TiC directory by name; 23 did not match, mostly where a regional Blue plan's index is not yet loaded.

  • The award sample is twelve. The retention figure (one of five) is directional. Most 2026 awards post between November 2026 and February 2027; the corpus will be re-checked then.
  • Private employers under 100 participants, church plans and tribal governmental plans leave no welfare filing. Seven of 25 private issuers fall there.
  • Compensation figures are Schedule A amounts as reported by the carrier. Fees paid directly by the sponsor outside an insurance contract do not appear.
  • Captive and program membership is inferred from filing structure, with a stated confidence tier, and is never named on the filing.
  • Filing data describes what was reported. Nothing here is a finding about any broker's conduct.

Start with an RFP you are bidding.Leave with the brief.

Bring one open RFP. We will build the five-row brief from the record in the call.

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CalliopeSales

The study gives you the market.CalliopeSales gives you the approach.

CalliopeSales is Calliope's consulting arm: market strategy and go-to-market work for benefits teams, led by Becca Johnson. Flow is the software. This is the working session on how your firm, your territory and your producers should use it.

  • A read of your niche: the accounts shaped like what you already win, and the RFPs posting in it.
  • The positioning: how to answer the criteria issuers publish with the facts they withhold.
  • A plan for the team: who prospects what, from which signals, on what cadence.
Tell us what you are working onReplies come from Becca, not a sequence

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