A better renewal workflow

Stella Online Quoting Tool

Your opportunity to help shape a smarter quoting, analysis, and recommendation experience for employee benefits agencies.

Seeking a small group of participating agencies

Stella is moving from a powerful spreadsheet to an online tool that can support the entire renewal decision process.

The familiar quoting outputs will remain, but Stella Online is being designed to do more than calculate rates. It will help agencies review renewals, compare plans, analyze the numbers, model employer contributions, and prepare recommendations that reflect how the agency actually works.

The workflow

From renewal to recommendation

Each step is designed to reduce manual work while keeping the agent in control.

Step 1

Start the quote

Enter or upload a census, or begin with the EO rate for a renewal plan and the employee counts. For a fully insured BCBSTX group, upload the renewal and Stella can extract the necessary information.

Step 2

Create a renewal summary

Generate a PDF showing the current and renewal plans, along with a census that can be reviewed and modified before quoting.

Step 3

Review the census

Add or remove employees directly on the screen when the census has changed. If it has not, move straight to generating the quote.

Step 4

Generate quote outputs

Create familiar Stella outputs in Excel, plus side-by-side comparisons with similar plans identified automatically. Save multiple versions for different plan combinations.

Step 5

Analyze the options

Receive a rule-based analysis of the quotes, including explanations driven by the numbers and relevant details such as network size. This step does not use AI.

Step 6

Develop the recommendation

Use AI to combine the quote analysis, available market strategies, agency preferences, and client circumstances into a recommendation that reflects the agent’s approach.

Step 7

Model employer contributions

Adjust the employer contribution for the plans under consideration and immediately see the effect on both the employer’s total cost and the employees’ share.

The recommendation engine

AI guided by real agency judgment

A retrieval-augmented generation system, commonly called RAG, will give Stella access to industry knowledge about carriers, plan designs, and employer strategies. But industry knowledge alone is not enough. A useful recommendation also needs to reflect the agency and the client.

1

Quote and analysis

Rates, plan differences, contribution scenarios, network considerations, and other measurable factors.

2

Market intelligence

Available carriers, funding arrangements, plan strategies, and other options that could be considered.

3

Agency and client preferences

The carriers, strategies, plan combinations, priorities, limitations, and past decisions that shape a real recommendation.

Numbers + industry knowledge + agency judgment + client circumstances = a stronger first-draft recommendation

How participating agencies can help

The goal is not to make generic AI recommendations. It is to teach Stella how experienced agents evaluate options and communicate advice to their clients.

Document your agency preferences

Which carriers do you work with? Which do you prefer? How many plans do you normally offer? When do you recommend HMOs, HSA-compatible plans, level funding, back-end HRAs, or other strategies? What do you tend to avoid?

Describe selected client preferences

For a few upcoming renewals, identify the nonmedical factors that would influence your recommendation. Examples include out-of-state employees, PPO requirements, carrier preferences, contribution limits, composite-rate preferences, prior experience with level funding, and the client’s desired balance between coverage and cost.

Provide a few past examples

Share three or four strong examples that show what you recommended and how you presented it. Useful examples could include:

Formal proposals Client emails Call notes Renewal summaries

Help test the result

Recently completed renewals are especially valuable. Stella’s recommendation can be compared with the recommendation the agency ultimately made, helping identify what the system understood and what it missed.

No HIPAA information is needed. The focus is on the business, coverage, pricing, carrier, and strategy factors that influence the agency’s recommendation, not an individual’s protected health information.

The goal: save time without losing the agent’s voice

Stella should produce a recommendation that is informed, agency-specific, and close to what the agent would have prepared independently. The agent remains responsible for reviewing the options, applying professional judgment, and editing the recommendation before it goes to the client.

Interested in helping shape Stella Online?