We asked 160+ HR Leaders about benefits placement: here’s what brokers need to know

Between managing recruitment, onboarding, employee satisfaction, and compliance, HR teams are stretched really thin.

Brokers are supposed to lighten the load, bringing market knowledge, carrier connections, strong negotiation skills, and support to benefit plan selection and rollout.

But HR professionals say the opposite is happening.

In a survey of 160+ HR professionals managing benefits at U.S. companies, a majority feel brokers are adding more to their already full plates. More back-and-forth, more spreadsheeting, more explaining to their superiors why things are taking so long.

This may seem discouraging, but really, it’s an opportunity for modern brokers to stand out. The brokers who recognize what’s causing HR teams stress and fix it (without their clients asking) will grow their book of business exponentially faster. Here’s where the most friction is coming from in the HR-broker relationship, and how you can get ahead.

The biggest frustration: waiting on quotes and clarifications

When we asked HR leaders about their most common challenges during benefits placement, nearly half (47.8%) cited “waiting on quote clarifications” as a top pain point. And it’s easy to see why.

Every additional question a client asks can mean days (potentially weeks) of waiting for a response. As a result, they either have to:

• Extend their timelines, frustrating employees and inviting scrutiny from senior leadership, or
• Scramble to meet deadlines, adding last-minute pressure to their own teams and leaving less time for open enrollment prep.

The alternative—not asking questions or leaving comments—leaves clients wondering if you explored every option, if they’re truly getting the best deal, or if you overlooked an important requirement.

While it may feel more professional to communicate only with clients once you have their final numbers, HR leaders won’t see how valuable your work is or how they could help you finalize plans without visibility into what’s happening behind the scenes.

Spreadsheets are still doing too much of the work

Spreadsheeting is another big headache for HR professionals: 42.9% said it was one of their biggest challenges working with benefits brokers.

It’s not just because comparing quotes by hand is so tedious. It’s also because:

• The differences can be hard to interpret. Was that a monthly or an annual cost? How does a deductible tradeoff impact out-of-pocket costs for employees?
• Version control is often out of control. When quotes come in piecemeal, HR teams end up juggling multiple files, some with the most up-to-date rates and requested adjustments, some without. If your client leaves comments on the wrong version, it adds more days to an already slow process.

Easy-to-read quote comparisons help you close renewals faster—and give your clients confidence they’re making the right decisions.

Data errors cause the most friction

Mistyped premiums, missing rate tiers, mismatched eligibility details—they all create rework for you and your clients. Worse, they trigger another round of approvals, further dragging out the placement process.

It’s why over 42% of HR professionals cite data inaccuracy as a source of inefficiency in benefits placement.

Software can eliminate the risks of manual entry (and save you time) by pulling data directly from source systems and automatically formatting it. When HR teams see accurate, consistent data from the start, they feel less anxious about what might slip through the cracks.

Visibility and communication still fall short

A hallmark of good customer service is transparency. Helping customers understand what to expect, when to expect it, and if something goes sideways, how you’re going to resolve it, is how you build long-term trust.

HR teams want more of that clarity and proactivity baked into the benefits placement process. Yet in most cases, they don’t know where benefits placement stands until they ask. The updates they do get are infrequent or inconsistent, making it hard to plan and align stakeholders. In our survey, we found a significant share of issues come from:

• Lack of communication and updates (34.8%)
• Lack of visibility into broker progress (21.1%)
• Limited access to real-time information (10.6%)

Regular updates, even brief ones, position you as a partner HR teams can count on.

HR teams are doing more manual work than they should

Almost three-quarters of HR professionals (72%) say they do a “moderate amount” or “a lot” of manual work during benefits placement. That includes:

• Comparing plan options, rates, and tiers in spreadsheets 
• Chasing down quote revisions and missing documents via email
• Reentering finalized plan details into HRIS platforms, payroll systems, and employee-facing materials

That’s time they could be spending on strategic planning or the other tasks on their to-do list. With the tools available today, busywork shouldn’t be part of their job.

5 ways to improve the broker experience

So, what can brokers do to make this better? We’ve already hinted at a few things, but here’s what HR professionals told us themselves:

1. Make quote comparison intuitive

45.3% of HR leaders want easier-to-understand quote comparisons so tradeoffs are easy to understand and defend internally. Consider shopping around for software that can help you highlight cost variations, coverage gaps, and employee impact side-by-side.

2. Centralize your communication

34.2% said they want one place to get updates, leave comments, and track progress, not a dozen email threads, PDFs, and CSVs. Look into tools that consolidate this activity into a single platform, reducing the risk of miscommunication and costly errors.

3. Be more strategic

30.4% of HR professionals want more proactive guidance. To them, you’re the expert on what options are out there, what employees expect, how other companies are structuring their programs, and what edge cases to look out for. So share insights and flag potential issues as they come up.

4. Speed up quote delivery

25.5% want faster quote turnaround times, so take a hard look at your quoting workflow. Where can you automate? Are there other systems you can integrate with to run scenarios faster and reduce manual entry?

The more efficiently you can get accurate quotes in front of your clients, the more time they have to review options and make informed decisions.

5. Minimize manual work

17.4% of people we surveyed said fewer manual tasks would significantly improve their experience. Wherever you find yourself (or your clients) retyping plan details, reconciling versions, and reformatting data for downstream systems—that’s an opportunity to make an adjustment. Cleaner handoffs reduce errors and make benefits placement less of a grind for everyone involved.

Meet clients where they are

HR professionals want to work with brokers who run a tight process. But that’s not easy when you’re waiting on carrier responses, analyzing and normalizing quotes, and trying to manage hundreds of renewals at once.

‍ThreeFlow helps you give clients the clarity, speed, and confidence they’re looking for—without adding to your workload. Collect renewals or go-to-market in minutes, receive AI-populated quotes from carriers (no spreadsheeting required), automatically highlight deviations with normalized values, and present quotes in your preferred format to clients using our presentation assistant.

It’s time to make benefits placement less manual and more manageable. Get a demo to see how you can with ThreeFlow.