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Comparing Current vs Renewal Plans

When you compare plans on a medical renewal, MonarkHQ shows the group's current in-force plans side by side with the renewal, prices both against the same census, and lets you shop rival carriers into the same view. This turns the comparison from "here are the renewal options" into "here is what changes, and what else is available."

This guide covers the renewal comparison view. Comparisons for new-business (non-renewal) quotes keep the simpler per-plan layout described in Building Proposals.

Opening the Comparison

  1. Open the Proposal and go to the Quotes tab
  2. Open the Medical instant quote for the renewal
  3. Map each current plan line to its renewal plan, then click Save current plans on the Confirm current plans card — Monark takes you to the comparison as soon as the baseline is built

The renewal layout appears automatically once current plan rates are available for the group.

You can also click Compare & Price Plans on a mapping card at any point. While the Confirm current plans step is still outstanding that button is deliberately de-emphasized — it still works, but going through the card first is what gets you a Current column.

Where the "Current" Column Comes From

To show a real Current column, Monark needs to know two things: which catalog plans the group is on today, and what those plans cost.

Confirm current plans

The renewal quote page carries a Confirm current plans card below the renewal mapping cards. This is the step that builds the Current column — Monark no longer guesses silently from the census plan name.

The baseline is your renewal mapping, priced a year earlier. You don't pick a catalog plan for the Current column separately. Whatever plan you mapped a census line to in its Renewal column — by Smart Suggest or by hand — is the plan Monark prices at the current effective date to produce that line's Current figure. Re-map the line and its baseline moves with it.

Because of that, the card has nothing to confirm until the mapping is done. Until every current plan line is mapped it stays collapsed to a single line — "Current plans — map your plans above to confirm the baseline and effective dates." The moment the last line is mapped, the card expands, scrolls itself into view and highlights briefly.

Expanded, it lists each distinct plan name from the census Medical Plan Name column with the member count on that line and the Baseline it will price — the carrier and plan you mapped. A badge in the card header shows which plan year those rates come from.

The card carries three controls:

| Control | What it does | | -------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Include current plans | On by default. Switch it off to run the comparison as renewal + alternatives only — no Current column, no vs-current deltas. | | Current effective date | The date the group's in-force plans are priced at. Defaults to the prior plan year; change it for a short plan year. Must be on or before the renewal date. | | Renewal effective date | The date the renewal is priced at. Set independently of the current date. |

Click Save current plans to build the Current column, or Save — renewal only when the toggle is off. Either way the card collapses to a one-line confirmation and Monark continues straight to the comparison — the Current column is already being built when you arrive, so there is no second click.

What happens after you save

  1. A companion "current rates" quote is created. Monark quotes your confirmed plans at the current effective date, so the Current column carries the same per-member rate detail as the renewal options rather than a flat estimate.
  2. Current plans follow your renewal mapping. The plan you mapped in a line's Renewal column is the source of truth for what that line's current plan is — re-mapping a line moves its Current column with it. This replaces both the old fuzzy match of the census plan name against the whole catalog and the per-plan catalog picker that used to sit on this card. Where two renewal options cover the same census line, the first mapping in page order sets that line's baseline.

This companion quote is a snapshot — it is not refreshed when the renewal quote's rates are refreshed, because it represents what the group is paying today.

A line whose plan can't be priced is reported, not re-matched. If the plan you mapped wasn't offered by the carrier on the current effective date, Monark tells you which line and leaves it unpriced rather than quietly substituting a different catalog plan. The save toast names how many plans are affected, and each affected line is flagged in the card itself — "The carrier didn't offer this plan on [date]" — so you can either move the current effective date or map that line to a plan the carrier did offer. A Current baseline built on a plan you never chose is worse than a gap, so the gap is what you get.

If the Current Column Doesn't Appear

Building the companion quote takes tens of seconds. The comparison opens with the renewal columns first, then fills in the Current columns as soon as the rates exist — you do not need to refresh the page or click anything.

If Current columns never appear, work through these in order:

| What you see | What it means | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | No Current column, no banner | Either Include current plans is switched off on the Confirm current plans card (the comparison is deliberately renewal-only), or the card hasn't been saved yet — including the case where it is still collapsed to one line because a current plan line has no renewal mapping. Reopen the renewal quote, finish the mapping, then save the card. | | A greyed Current — Rates unavailable column, with a banner above the table | The rating source has no historical rates for that plan year. See below. | | Current column present, but one plan line is blank | That line's mapped plan wasn't offered on the current effective date. Adjust the current effective date on the card, or map that line to a different renewal plan. |

Other causes worth checking: no plan names in the census Medical Plan Name column, so there is nothing to confirm; or the group's current plan is no longer listed in the prior-year catalog (a delisted or discontinued plan).

Without current rates, the comparison still works — you simply won't see vs-current deltas or the absorb-increase contribution scenarios.

When the Plan Year Has No Historical Rates

Some plan years have no rates published at all from the rating source. Rather than dropping the Current column silently, the comparison says so:

  • A banner appears above the table explaining that current-year rates aren't available yet for this plan year, and that the renewal and alternatives are unaffected.
  • A greyed placeholder Current column holds the baseline's place in the table, labeled Rates unavailable. Its premium, total, and employer/employee split cells show “—” rather than $0, deltas against it are suppressed, and it is left out of the summary cards — so nothing in the comparison reads as “the group currently pays nothing.”

Everything else on the comparison behaves normally. The placeholder is replaced by a real Current column if and when those rates become available.

Reading the Comparison

Summary Cards

Two cards sit above the table:

| Card | What it totals | | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Current | The in-force plans — total premium, split between what the Employer pays and what employees pay. | | Renewal as-is | The mapped renewal options only, with a percentage badge showing the change against Current. Plans you add for shopping are not counted here. |

Both cards react to the contribution scenario you have selected, so switching scenarios updates the employer/employee split immediately.

The Option-Grouped Table

On renewals the table is organized by option, not by individual plan:

  • Each column is one carrier option — Current, Renewal, and any carrier you shop in.
  • Each premium row is one plan line — if the group offers three medical plans today, there are three rows, and each column shows that option's price for that line.
  • The Plan design section has line tabs. Because a column can cover several lines, you pick which line's benefits to display below. Values that differ from the current plan are highlighted so changes stand out.
  • Column headers can show every mapped plan name. By default a header clamps its plan list to two lines. When any option covers more than one plan, a Show all plans toggle appears at the left of the header row — it expands every column header together so the headers stay aligned, which matters when you're screenshotting the table. Click Collapse plans to go back.

Rows below the premiums include:

  • Employer pays and Employees pay, each with a vs-current delta
  • Network providers
  • Plan documents — labeled links to the SBC and drug formulary where the carrier provides them
  • Member breakdown — expandable per-member detail

Note:

A vs-current delta is shown only when every member counted in that column can be matched to a rate on their own current plan. If even one member can't be resolved, the delta is left blank rather than shown against an incomplete baseline. A missing delta means "can't be computed accurately," not "no change."

Pinned Columns and Scrolling

The Current and Renewal columns stay pinned to the left while you scroll through shopped alternatives, so the baseline is always visible.

On narrower screens, where the pinned columns would leave no room to scroll, pinning is dropped and the whole table scrolls normally. When you add a new column, the table scrolls it into view just past the pinned region.

Contribution Scenarios

The contribution panel on the comparison is tabbed — Current for what the Employer contributes today, Renewal for what you're modeling — with one-click scenario presets including Employer absorbs increase and Employee absorbs increase.

Every figure in the comparison reacts to the selected scenario. See Employer Contributions for the full detail on the tabs, the scenario pills, and what does and doesn't get saved.

Shopping Alternatives

Beyond the renewal, you can pull rival carriers into the same comparison.

Tier Tabs

A row of tabs scopes which alternatives are in play, relative to the group's current metal levels:

| Tab | Shows | | --------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- | | Same tier | Plans at the same metal level as the current plans | | Downgrade | Leaner metal levels — lower premium, higher member cost sharing | | Upgrade | Richer metal levels | | All tiers | No metal filter |

The filter is global — it applies relative to the group's current metals as a whole, not per individual plan line.

Smart Suggest

Smart Suggest fills the comparison for you. For each current plan line it picks the cheapest plan from a different carrier that satisfies the active tier tab, preferring a matching plan type (HMO, PPO, and so on), then stars the strongest overall result as the broker pick.

Switching to a tier tab runs Smart Suggest for that tier, and the first suggest runs automatically when you arrive at a renewal comparison that has no alternatives on it yet.

Add Carrier

To choose a specific plan rather than take the suggestion, click Add carrier. This opens the same full plan browser used when mapping renewal plans — with filters, a sortable table, and the plan detail sheet.

The browser opens scoped to the active tier and hides plans already on the comparison, but both are recoverable through the browser's own filters if you want to look wider.

Broker Pick and Persistence

  • Star any column to mark it as your broker pick.
  • Shopped alternatives and your broker pick are saved to the renewal option. They survive a reload, and they're there when you or a colleague reopen the saved comparison.
  • Remove an alternative with the × on its column header. Manual adds and removals are saved the same way suggestions are — Smart Suggest won't undo a column you deliberately added or removed.

Member Breakdown

Expand Member breakdown to see every census member as a row, with each option column showing that member's cost on their own plan line — total premium, Employer share, and payroll deduction under the active contribution scenario.

The breakdown reflects the scenario currently selected, which makes it a practical way to answer "what actually happens to this employee's paycheck?" before committing to a contribution strategy.

Best Practices

Confirm the Current Baseline First

Everything downstream — deltas, summary cards, absorb-increase scenarios — rests on the Current column being right. Because the baseline is now whatever you mapped in the Renewal column, getting the mapping right is getting the baseline right: where a carrier lists several catalog entries under one plan name, they are often different rating variants at different prices, so a loose renewal mapping produces a loose Current figure too. Read the Baseline line the card shows for each plan before you save, then check the Current total against the Employer's actual bill before you present anything.

If you don't need a current baseline at all — a new-carrier takeover, say — switch Include current plans off rather than leaving an approximate Current column in the comparison.

Shop Before You Model Contributions

Add the alternatives you want to consider first, then work through contribution scenarios. The scenarios apply across all visible columns, so a complete column set means fewer passes.

Keep the Column Count Honest

A comparison with every rival carrier on it is harder to present than one with the renewal plus two or three genuine options. Use the broker pick star to signal your recommendation.

Next Steps