Building Proposals

Once you’ve gathered quotes and carrier offers, the next step is to curate and prepare the Proposal that your Employer will review. This guide focuses on selecting, organizing, and presenting proposal content—not on quoting or configuration.

1. Understanding the Proposal Builder

What This Step Is (and Isn’t)

At this stage:

The Proposal already exists
Census, coverage types, quotes, and contributions are already configured

The Proposal Builder is where you:

Decide which options the Employer will see
Organize those options clearly
Highlight recommendations
Prepare the Proposal for delivery

What a Proposal Contains

A Proposal is an employer-facing package that may include:

Selected Proposal Items (plans/options)
Employer and employee cost summaries
Side-by-side comparisons
Member-level cost breakdowns
Supporting documents and notes

Key Proposal Components

| Component | Purpose | | ----------------- | --------------------------------------- | | Proposal Items | Individual plans included for review | | Coverage Sections | Grouping of items by coverage type | | Executive Summary | High-level overview and recommendations | | Comparisons | Side-by-side plan evaluation | | Member Breakdown | Payroll and employer cost detail | | Attachments | Supporting documents |

2. Accessing the Proposal Builder

Navigate to the Proposal
Click the Proposal tab
Open the proposal workspace

This workspace reflects exactly what the Employer will see, subject to permissions and delivery method.

3. Adding Items to the Proposal

What Can Be Added

You can add:

Plans from Instant Quotes
Carrier Offers received via RFPs

Only items you explicitly add appear in the Proposal.

Adding from Instant Quotes

Go to the Quotes tab
Open instant quote results (e.g., Medical, Pet)
Select one or more plans
Click Add to Proposal

Adding from Carrier Offers

Go to the Quotes tab
Select the relevant coverage type
Review submitted carrier offers
Click Add to Proposal on the offers you want included

Bulk vs. Individual Adds

Individual: Add one plan at a time
Bulk: Select multiple plans and add them together

4. Managing Proposal Items

Viewing Proposal Items

Within the Proposal tab, items are organized by coverage type.

Collapsed, each item card is kept short. It shows:

The item's title and carriers
Its badges
A selection checkbox and the item's actions

Plan rows, pricing and notes aren't shown on the collapsed card. Open the item's details to see benefits, contribution-adjusted costs and notes.

Marking Recommendations

Highlight preferred options for the Employer:

Save or edit the quote
Tick Mark as Recommended in the save dialog
Recommended items appear more prominently

Tip: Recommendations should be intentional. Too many dilute their value.

Reordering and Removing Items

Reorder: Drag items within a coverage section to control display order
Remove: Click Remove to exclude an item from the Proposal

Removing an item does not delete the underlying quote or offer.

5. Coverage Sections

How Sections Work

Proposal Items are automatically grouped by coverage type, such as:

Medical
Dental
Vision
Life & AD&D
Disability
Voluntary Benefits
Pet

Each section helps Employers evaluate options in context.

Section-Level Overview

Each coverage section shows:

Number of options included
Cost range across plans
Recommended options highlighted

6. Executive Summary & Cost Overview

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary gives Employers a high-level snapshot:

Employer & Group Context

Employer name
Census summary (employees, dependents, total members)
Effective date

Coverage Overview

Coverage types included
Number of options per coverage
Recommended selections

Cost Overview

Total premium ranges
Employer vs employee cost ranges
High-level contribution impact

Viewing Item Details

Click any Proposal Item to see:

Full benefit details
Rate tables
Contribution-adjusted costs
Carrier documents (SBCs, summaries)

7. Comparisons

Creating Side-by-Side Comparisons

Select multiple Proposal Items within a coverage type
Click Compare
Review comparison table

What Comparisons Show

| Comparison Area | Description | | ---------------- | ---------------------------- | | Benefits | Key plan features | | Rates | Premiums across tiers | | Cost Differences | Relative pricing | | Metrics | Deductibles, OOP max, copays |

Comparisons can be used internally or included in employer-facing exports.

Medical Plan Column Order

In the medical plan comparison, plan columns are arranged automatically in this order:

The group's current plan
The base plan
Plan type: PPO, then EPO, then HMO, then other types
Metal tier, highest first: Platinum → Gold → Silver → Bronze (plans with no metal tier last)
Total group premium, highest to lowest
Carrier name, then plan name

The Full Proposal Excel export uses the same order, so the workbook matches what you see on screen.

Setting your own order. To arrange the columns yourself, click Reorder Fields and Plans in the proposal workspace (available while the proposal is a draft). Each plan column header shows a drag handle. Drag the columns into the order you want, then click Done (or Cancel to discard). Your order is saved with the proposal and replaces the automatic order in the comparison, in item details and in the Full Proposal Excel export.

8. Member Cost Breakdown

What the Breakdown Shows

The member breakdown displays:

Per-member premium amounts
Employer contribution per member
Employee payroll deduction per member

Viewing the Breakdown

Open a Proposal Item
Click View Member Breakdown
Review per-member cost allocation

Contribution rules are applied automatically based on prior configuration.

Enrollment-based tier calculations: The member breakdown uses each employee's actual enrolled household tier — Employee Only, Employee + Spouse, Employee + Children, or Family — derived from the census, rather than a generic household composition estimate. This means the per-member costs shown reflect the exact tier each employee is enrolled in, producing more precise payroll deduction figures for each household.

Per-Dependent Rates (Medical)

For medical Proposal Items, the breakdown includes per-dependent rate detail — the individual premium for each enrolled dependent (spouse, child, or other family member) is shown alongside the employee-only rate. This gives a granular view of how the total family premium is composed, which is useful when communicating exact payroll deduction amounts to each member.

9. Attachments and Notes

Attachments

Add documents that help Employers make decisions:

Benefit summaries
SBCs
Comparison spreadsheets
Implementation timelines

Attachments can be reordered or removed as needed.

Notes and Commentary

Add broker notes to provide context:

Recommendations and rationale
Key trade-offs
Decision guidance

Some notes may be internal-only, depending on configuration.

10. Exporting the Proposal

Export Types

Click Export in the proposal workspace to open the export dialog. It offers three export types:

| Export | Format | Common Use | | ------------------- | ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Full Proposal | Excel (.xlsx) | Complete proposal with all quotes, rates and plan details, for analysis and client review | | Employee Worksheets | PDF | Per-employee benefits reference sheet with plan details and costs | | OE Reference Sheets | PDF | Per-employee 2-page open enrollment sheet with all proposed plans and net costs by tier |

Requested RFPs and the census aren't exported from this dialog. Use the dedicated exports in the Quoting and Census views.

Export Options

For a Full Proposal, choose what to include:

Cover page with company info
Executive summary
Census data
Broker notes

Coverage tabs and rate tables for every Proposal Item are always included. The workbook uses your organization's accent color automatically.

OE Reference Sheets produce a 2-page PDF for each employee that lists every proposed plan and that employee's net cost by tier, ready to hand out during open enrollment.

Employee Worksheets price every employee on every plan in the proposal, including alternative and renewal plans the employee isn't currently enrolled in. When an age-banded plan has no rate for an employee, the worksheet shows "—" rather than a tier estimate. For disability plans, the worksheet shows the per-paycheck deduction and the plan maximum.

Payroll Cycle on Employee-Facing Exports

Employee deductions in MonarkHQ are calculated and stored monthly. Employees, however, see the amount that comes out of a single paycheck — so the Employee Worksheets and OE Reference Sheet exports let you show deductions on the Employer's actual payroll cycle.

When you select either of those two export types, a Payroll Cycle dropdown appears in the export dialog:

| Cycle | Pay periods per year | | ------------ | -------------------- | | Weekly | 52 | | Bi-Weekly | 26 | | Semi-Monthly | 24 | | Monthly | 12 |

Deductions are converted using true-period math — the annual deduction divided by the number of pay periods — so bi-weekly and semi-monthly produce correctly different per-paycheck figures rather than both being treated as "twice a month."

Setting the Employer's default. Each Employer account carries a Default Payroll Cycle, set on the account's Company Information (available both when creating an account and when editing one). The export dialog pre-selects that default every time it opens, so you normally don't have to touch the dropdown.

Note:

Changing the dropdown in the export dialog affects that export only — it does not change the Employer's saved default. Reopening the dialog returns to the account default. To change it permanently, update the account.

The Payroll Cycle dropdown appears only for Employee Worksheets and OE Reference Sheets. Other exports are unaffected and continue to show monthly figures.

What's in the Full Proposal Workbook

Tabs. The workbook opens with the Account Summary (cover page), Executive Summary and Census tabs (whichever you included), then one tab per coverage. Medical plan columns follow the order described under Medical Plan Column Order, including any manual order you set.

Dental: When a proposal includes both dental PPO and DHMO offers, they get separate Dental PPO and Dental DHMO tabs (PPO first). A proposal with only one dental type keeps a single Dental tab.
Disability: Disability offers are split into Short Term Disability and Long Term Disability tabs (STD first). Plan Type reads "STD" or "LTD".
Renewal plans: On the Life, Dental, Vision and Disability tabs, a renewal plan appears as its own column, labeled [RENEWAL] (or [CURRENT]), next to the carrier alternatives on the same tab.
Medical offers from an RFP show the RFP intake fields, formatted as currency or percent.

Medical Rate Table tabs. Each medical tab with rate data has a matching rate table tab:

Age-banded plans show an age grid. Bands come from enrolled members' rates first, then the carrier's reference rates. Any band still missing is estimated from the ACA age curve at the group's effective date. Estimated values are marked "*", with a footnote explaining that they're derived from the ACA age curve and aren't carrier-published rates.
Community-rated plans (for example New York) aren't age-banded. They appear in a TIER RATES section with the carrier's tier rates instead of an age curve. When a tab has both kinds of plans, the age grid appears below under AGE-BANDED RATES.

Employer contributions. For groups with more than one job class, each coverage tab shows one labeled employer contribution row per class (for example "EE 50% / DEP 50%"). Employees with no class appear as "All Employees". Single-class groups show a single row as before.

Executive Summary and cost summaries. A renewal is described by the carriers and plan types of all its plans, and its total sums every plan's member rates. The summary total counts one option per coverage and notes any options that aren't ranked. Each coverage tab's Cost Summary lists Employer Total before Employee Total.

11. Proposal Status

Proposal Lifecycle

| Status | Meaning | | --------- | ----------------------------- | | Draft | Still being built | | Ready | Finalized and ready to send | | Sent | Delivered to Employer | | Viewed | Employer opened Proposal | | Responded | Employer submitted selections | | Completed | Decision finalized |

Status updates automatically as you move through delivery and selection.

After a Proposal has been sent, changes you save are kept as a private draft. An info icon next to Send to Employer or Update Employer Proposal explains: "Saved drafts are private. The employer continues to see the latest issued revision until you publish an update."

12. Best Practices

Curate, Don’t Dump

2–4 options per coverage is usually ideal
Fewer options = clearer decisions

Lead with Insight

Mark recommendations clearly
Explain trade-offs in notes

Review Before Sending

Confirm contributions and costs
Ensure attachments are relevant
Preview exports

Next Steps

Once the Proposal is complete:

Sending Proposals — Deliver the Proposal to the Employer and track responses