An insurance broker RFP is a formal competitive procurement process where multiple brokers compete to win a company's commercial insurance placement. A real RFP requires four structural elements that distinguish it from a renewal review: assignment of specific insurer markets to each broker to prevent duplication, written scoring criteria agreed before submissions, a minimum of four to six brokers across global, regional, and specialist tiers, and a scoring methodology that weights coverage quality and service standards alongside premium.
Most insurance "RFPs" run by an incumbent broker are not RFPs. They are renewal reviews with the appearance of competition. The competitive savings from a genuine RFP routinely run fifteen to thirty-five percent on premium with equal or better coverage, with the largest savings coming from disciplined insurer-assignment and independent scoring — not from price negotiation at the end.
Run Your Next RFP with Independent Engineering Support
Most CFOs running an insurance broker RFP for the first time do so with no independent reference. The result is a process structurally controlled by the brokers being evaluated — which produces the renewal-review-in-disguise outcome that this page describes. An independent advisor designs the RFP, runs the broker briefing, scores the submissions against criteria you agree in advance, and protects you from the four most common mistakes outlined above.
DeshCap provides independent RFP engineering for commercial insurance programmes from $50,000 to $50 million in annual premium. We are paid by the policyholder. We earn no commissions from any broker or insurer. The initial strategy session is $250 and covers the design and scoring framework for your specific procurement.
Savings are contractually guaranteed, otherwise we pay the difference. Applicable worldwide.
👉 Our independent insurance engineers typically save clients 10–35% through an insurance broker rfp while eliminating coverage gaps that could cost far more later. Our team also provides Full Claims Management with Cash Advance at Loss, which is outside of the purview of brokers.
What Is An Insurance Broker RFP?
It is a request for proposal for insurance broker services. It is recommended that an RFP for an insurance broker be done every 3-5 years.
Many businesses stick with a single insurance broker for a long time without scoping the market for competing brokers, which often leads them to not maximize the service and cost effectiveness of their insurance procurement. Many times insurance brokers become passive and simply renew commercial insurance year over year without much effort, providing them with an easy recurring stream of commissions. However that comes at the expense of the business (insured) because commercial insurance must be proactively updated at least once a year to match the operational changes of the business as well as changing insurance market dynamics.
It is therefore important for businesses to create competition amongst brokers every few years in order to test the market and achieve its full potential, which can yield substantial cost savings.
In addition, knowing who to hire as commercial broker is not simple. Many businesses assume that if a brokerage has an international brand name then it would be a good fit. However, international brokerages have different teams that can operate very differently from one jurisdiction to another or one department to another. It is important to compare a specific team within an international brokerage to teams within regional and local brokerages.
The RFP document specifies the company's risk profile, current programme structure, coverage requirements, claims history, and the criteria against which competing brokers will be scored. It is sent to a panel of pre-qualified brokers who respond within a defined window — typically four to six weeks — with their proposed insurer panel, coverage structure, premium estimates, service commitments, and fee disclosure.
An RFP is distinct from three other procurement processes that are often confused with it. A market review re-prices the existing programme through the incumbent broker. A renewal exercise updates the current placement for the next policy year. A broker beauty parade invites brokers to present their capabilities without a formal scoring process. None of these introduce the competitive tension that produces measurable savings.
The defining characteristic of a real RFP is independence — independence in who designs the document, independence in who scores the responses, and independence in who controls the insurer-assignment process that prevents brokers from approaching the same markets. Without these three elements, the process produces the appearance of competition without the substance of it.
Defining an Insurance RFP
A general insurance RFP can be an RFP for insurance companies once an insurance broker is selected (or before the selection of a broker, depending on the jurisdiction). Typically it is best to conduct the general insurance RFP after conducting an insurance broker RFP, meaning it is best to select a broker first before making insurers compete against each other. A general insurance RFP to select insurers has its own mechanics and scorecard, which is very different than an RFP for insurance broker services.
How a Real RFP Differs from a Renewal Review
A real RFP invites multiple brokers to compete with formal insurer assignments and independent scoring criteria, while a renewal review keeps the incumbent broker in place and re-prices the existing programme. The structural difference is competitive tension — a real RFP introduces it, a renewal review prevents it.
The visible signs of a renewal review running under the label of an RFP are predictable. Only the incumbent broker is meaningfully involved. The "competitive" brokers invited cannot access the same insurer markets because of unassigned approaches. The scoring criteria are vague or designed after submissions are received. The final decision is presented as a market outcome rather than a controlled procurement decision.
A real RFP looks different at every stage. The insurer market is mapped before invitations go out and each broker is assigned exclusive access to specific insurers — preventing two brokers from quoting the same carrier and producing artificially uniform pricing. The scoring criteria are written and circulated before any submissions are received, with weighted points across coverage breadth, limit adequacy, service commitments, claims advocacy, fee transparency, and premium. The incumbent broker competes on the same terms as challengers, with no preferential treatment or advance information.
The financial consequences are also different. A renewal review typically produces premium movement of plus or minus five percent depending on market conditions. A real RFP produces premium movement of fifteen to thirty-five percent on average, with the savings coming from disciplined insurer-assignment, coverage standardisation, and the structural competition that brokers will not introduce when they control the process.
The Four Structural Elements of a Defensible RFP
A defensible insurance broker RFP contains four structural elements: insurer market assignments to prevent broker duplication, written scoring criteria agreed before submissions, a minimum of four to six invited brokers across global, regional, and specialist tiers, and a scoring methodology that weights coverage and service alongside premium.
Insurer market assignment. Before any broker is invited, the company maps the available insurer markets for each line of coverage — typically eight to fifteen insurers per major line in a developed market. Each insurer is then exclusively assigned to one broker. This prevents two brokers from independently approaching the same insurer, which produces uniform pricing and removes the competitive pressure that drives the savings. The mapping itself signals to brokers that the process is being run with structural rigour, which changes how seriously they engage.
Written scoring criteria agreed before submissions. A scoring matrix should be written and circulated to all invited brokers before any submission is received, with explicit weightings across at least six dimensions: coverage breadth and wording quality, limit adequacy against modelled exposure, service commitments and named team continuity, claims advocacy capability, fee and commission disclosure, and premium. Premium should be weighted no more than thirty to forty percent of the total score — broker-led RFPs almost always weight it above sixty percent because that is where they can compete most easily.
Minimum four to six invited brokers across three tiers. A defensible panel includes one to two global brokers — Marsh, Aon, WTW, Gallagher, McGriff — one to two regional brokers with sector specialisation, and one to two niche specialists with insurer relationships the global firms lack. Inviting fewer than four brokers produces insufficient competitive tension. Inviting only global brokers produces uniform pricing because they often access the same insurer panels through different placement teams.
Coverage-weighted scoring methodology. The scoring framework must weight what actually matters at claim time — wording quality, limit adequacy, and claims advocacy capability — alongside premium. Brokers who present strong premiums but weak wording, low limits, or poor claims service should score lower on overall value, not higher because they are cheaper. The methodology produces the basis for defending the procurement decision to the board, the auditor, and any future investor due diligence.
Who Should Be Invited — and How Many
The right RFP invites four to six brokers across three tiers: one or two global brokers (Marsh, Aon, WTW, Gallagher), one or two regional brokers with sector specialisation, and one or two niche specialists with insurer relationships the global firms lack. Inviting only global brokers produces uniform pricing because they often access the same insurer panels.
The right panel size sits between four and six brokers. Below four, there is insufficient competitive tension and brokers detect that the process is performative. Above six, the administrative burden on the company increases without proportional improvement in outcomes — broker submissions become harder to compare, and the better brokers may decline to participate if they perceive a low probability of winning.
Global brokers bring deep insurer relationships and capacity for complex placements. The four firms that consistently appear at this tier are Marsh, Aon, WTW, and Gallagher, with regional variations including McGriff in the United States and Lockton across multiple geographies. They are the right choice for programmes above five million dollars in annual premium and for multi-jurisdiction placements requiring coordinated global capability.
Regional brokers bring sector specialisation and often more responsive service than global firms can deliver to mid-market accounts. Examples include sector-focused brokers in hospitality, mining, construction, professional services, and manufacturing — each with insurer relationships and claims advocacy track records specific to their sector. For programmes between $500K and $5M in annual premium, regional brokers frequently outperform global firms on service quality at comparable or lower cost.
Niche specialists bring insurer relationships the global firms cannot access — particularly in cyber, financial lines, environmental, and trade credit. Including one niche specialist on the panel often surfaces coverage solutions and pricing that no global broker would have presented because their internal placement teams default to the same standard markets.
The mistake to avoid is inviting four brokers who all access the same insurer panel. The result is uniform pricing with cosmetic variation. A defensible panel forces structural diversity across tier and sector.
How to Specify Coverage Requirements in the RFP
The coverage specification is the section of the RFP that most companies under-invest in — and where the largest claim outcomes are determined years later. Brokers will respond to whatever specification they receive, so the specification effectively designs the programme. A vague specification produces a vague programme. A precise specification produces an enforceable one.
Required coverage elements should be itemised at the policy-section level, not just at the line-of-business level. Instead of stating "D&O insurance required," the specification should state "D&O Side A standalone DIC coverage with $5M dedicated limit, Insured Person definition including shadow directors and past directors, IvI exclusion with five carve-backs (derivative suits, bankruptcy trustee, employment, regulatory, whistleblower), defence costs in addition to limits." This level of precision forces brokers to compete on actual wording, not on summary statements.
Limits should be specified as minimum acceptable rather than fixed. Setting a fixed limit constrains brokers to that figure. Setting a minimum acceptable limit (with a separate request for the broker's recommended limit) allows brokers to propose larger limits where market conditions or carrier appetite support it — frequently surfacing higher coverage at lower cost than the company would have specified alone.
Claims history must be disclosed accurately and completely. Brokers who detect under-disclosed claims experience during the RFP will price higher to protect themselves, or worse, they will detect the gap after binding and the programme will fail at a future claim. Full five-year claims history with status, paid amounts, and reserves protects both the integrity of the RFP and the legal position of the programme post-binding.
Service requirements should be specified as enforceable commitments. Named team continuity for the renewal cycle, response times for claims notifications, frequency of programme reviews, and access to claims advocacy specialists should all be specified with measurable thresholds. Brokers who cannot commit to specific service standards should score lower than brokers who can.
How to Score Broker Submissions
The scoring methodology is what separates a defensible procurement from a subjective choice. Without an explicit, weighted, written scoring framework agreed before submissions, the decision becomes vulnerable to challenge — from the broker who loses, from the board questioning the process, and from any future investor or auditor reviewing how a major spend decision was made.
A defensible scoring matrix uses six weighted categories. Coverage breadth and wording quality typically carries 25 percent of the total score, evaluated against the precise coverage specification in the RFP. Limit adequacy and structure carries 15 percent, evaluating both the proposed limits and the structural logic (primary, excess, Side A standalone). Service commitments and team continuity carries 15 percent. Claims advocacy capability carries 10 percent, evaluated against documented claims outcomes for comparable clients. Fee and commission disclosure carries 5 percent — full disclosure scores higher than partial. Premium carries the remaining 30 percent.
Each category should have a written scoring rubric, not just a numerical score. "Coverage breadth: 9/10" means nothing without the rubric explaining what a 9 looks like vs an 8. Rubrics force evaluators to score against criteria rather than against impressions, and they provide the documentation trail that defends the final decision.
Premium scoring should be weighted to penalise the lowest bid disproportionately, not reward it. The lowest broker bid is often the lowest for reasons that surface at claim time — weaker wording, lower limit defaults, less experienced claims teams. Premium scoring should award the highest points to the broker offering best value (premium relative to coverage and service score), not the broker offering lowest absolute cost.
The scoring should be conducted by a panel of at least three people, with scores aggregated and outliers discussed. Single-evaluator scoring produces unreliable outcomes — particularly when one evaluator has an existing relationship with one of the brokers being assessed.
Common Mistakes That Quietly Sabotage an RFP
There are 5 common mistakes made my businesses when conducting an Insurance Broker RFP.
Mistake 1 — Inviting the incumbent broker to design the RFP document. The incumbent broker is the single party with the strongest incentive to ensure that the RFP produces a renewal-review outcome. They know the company's history, the existing programme, the claims experience, and the points where competitors would have to challenge them. Allowing them to design the document, draft the coverage specification, or propose the insurer panel guarantees a controlled outcome. The RFP must be designed by the company or an independent party, with the incumbent broker treated as a competing respondent only.
Mistake 2 — Failing to assign insurer markets exclusively. Without exclusive insurer assignments, two or more brokers will quote the same insurers. The insurers will price uniformly because they cannot meaningfully differentiate between the brokers approaching them. The resulting pricing convergence creates the appearance of market consensus when it is actually procedural failure. Insurer assignment is not optional — it is the structural mechanism that produces the competition.
Mistake 3 — Weighting premium above 50 percent of the score. Most company-led RFPs weight premium at 60-70 percent of the scoring decision. This is the structural reason that broker-led processes produce weak wording — brokers compete on the dimension that is weighted most heavily. Weighting premium at 30-40 percent forces brokers to compete on wording, service, and claims capability — the dimensions that actually determine outcomes at claim time.
Mistake 4 — Not securing fee and commission disclosure as a condition of participation. Brokers who decline to disclose total commission and contingent payment income should be removed from the panel before scoring. Companies that accept partial disclosure or no disclosure are accepting an information asymmetry that compromises every other decision in the process. Full written disclosure should be required at submission, not negotiated afterwards.
Mistake 5 — Treating the RFP as a one-time event rather than a recurring discipline. A single RFP run every five years captures most of the available savings in year one and erodes them through five years of incumbent renewals. The right cadence is a formal RFP every three to five years, supplemented by a structured renewal review every year with documented commission disclosure, service performance scoring, and a market test of two to three alternative quotes.
When to Use an Independent Advisor in the RFP Process
Use an independent advisor when your insurance should be designed beyond 'check the box' compliance with contractual and regulatory obligations.
The independent advisor's role in an insurance broker RFP is structurally different from the broker's role. The broker is being evaluated by the process. The advisor is running the process on behalf of the company. The two roles are not interchangeable — and the value of the advisor comes precisely from being independent of any broker or insurer relationship.
The independent advisor designs the RFP document. This includes the coverage specification, the scoring methodology, the insurer market mapping, and the broker assignment matrix. The design phase is where the integrity of the entire process is determined, and it requires expertise that the company typically lacks internally and that the incumbent broker cannot provide without conflict.
The independent advisor runs the broker briefing. A controlled, simultaneous briefing of all invited brokers ensures information parity — every broker receives the same data at the same time, with the same opportunity to ask questions. Without a controlled briefing, the incumbent broker has an information advantage that compromises the integrity of the responses.
The independent advisor scores the submissions. Independent scoring removes the company's internal bias toward incumbents and removes the broker bias inherent in self-evaluation. The advisor scores against the agreed methodology, documents the rationale for each score, and produces the documentation that defends the procurement decision.
The independent advisor protects the company from the four common mistakes. Each of the mistakes outlined in the previous section is structurally prevented by the advisor's involvement — the advisor controls the document design, enforces insurer assignment, applies appropriate premium weighting, and requires full commission disclosure as a participation condition. The presence of the advisor changes broker behaviour from the moment the panel is invited.
The economic case is straightforward. An independent advisor on an insurance broker RFP typically charges between 0.5 percent and 2 percent of the annual programme premium as a one-time fee, depending on complexity. The savings produced by a properly-run RFP at scale frequently run 15-35 percent on programme premium. The advisor fee is recovered in months, not years, and the structural improvements to wording and claims capability continue producing value across the lifecycle of the programme.
DeshCap provides independent RFP engineering for commercial insurance programmes between $50,000 and $50 million in annual premium. We are paid by the policyholder. We earn no commissions from any broker or insurer. We are not eligible to be invited as a broker on any RFP we design, by structural commitment. The initial strategy session is $250 and covers the design and scoring framework for your specific procurement. Contact DeshCap today.