What Brokers Actually Want from Health Plans (and Why Most Plans Get It Wrong)
Every health plan says it values its broker relationships, and most of them mean it. But there can be an unintentional disconnect between what best serves the health plan’s interests, and what’s most useful to their broker partners. While a health plan may provide a broker with tools, and a broker may be more favorable to the health plan, it’s important to understand that this relationship can’t be transactional. It must be reciprocal. And that requires listening to broker feedback and engaging with their needs.
From our experience speaking with brokers one on one over the years, we’ve compiled intel on what works best, and what doesn’t land. Here’s the key to unlocking broker engagement:
The most effective strategy isn’t about getting brokers to sell your plan. It’s about helping brokers be better at their jobs.
Why the Distinction Matters
Brokers are independent advisors. Their value to their clients — and their own livelihood — depends on their ability to stay objective, knowledgeable and trusted. When a health plan shows up with messaging that feels self-serving, experienced brokers notice, and they discount it accordingly.
However, when a health plan shows up with something that genuinely helps a broker do their job better — serve clients more effectively, win more business, protect renewals and navigate complex conversations — the dynamic shifts entirely. The broker no longer feels like a marketing target. They feel supported. Focusing on what’s most valuable for brokers, instead of their direct value to your organization, creates a meaningful relationship — and one that’s much harder for a competitor to replicate.
What Brokers Actually Want
When you employ the filter of helping a broker be better at their job, a few categories of ideas rise to the top.
Market intelligence brokers can’t get elsewhere. Brokers are constantly asked by their our size?” That’s a hard question to answer well without access to granular, local market data on what employers are actually doing — benefit levels, contribution strategies, plan designs by industry and employer size. A health plan with a substantial regional book of business is uniquely positioned to provide that benchmarking data. Done well, it becomes one of the most practically useful things a plan can put in a broker’s hands.
Tools that help brokers protect their existing book. Retention is where broker businesses are won or lost. If a health plan can give brokers data-driven tools to make a compelling case for renewal — utilization trends, cost trend narratives and benefit benchmarking packaged for client presentation — that directly protects broker revenue and makes the broker look indispensable. That’s the kind of support brokers remember.
Content that helps brokers answer the hard questions. GLP-1 coverage. Behavioral health access. Specialty pharmacy costs. These are the topics broker clients are asking about right now, and brokers are expected to have credible answers. A plan that consistently helps brokers stay current on fast-moving clinical and pharmacy topics earns a different kind of trust than one that only communicates during AEP or renewal season.
What Doesn’t Actually Support Brokers
It’s equally useful to know what doesn’t land, and why.
Health plan-produced “about us” content that brokers are expected to share with clients is rarely used. Experienced brokers aren’t a walking commercial for a health plan they partner with — their clients expect and pay for objectivity. When that content reads overly self-promotional, brokers are unlikely to use it, and it can undermine trust. Especially in the wake of recent market disruptions, brokers need materials that establish genuine credibility, not ones that read like a sales pitch.
While less common, programs that ask brokers to invest time with things like certification programs, webinar series or community forums only work if the return is obvious and tangible. Brokers are busy, entrepreneurial and protective of their schedule. If the value proposition is recognition or education alone, attendance will be thin and engagement thinner.
The Strategic Opportunity
For health plans willing to invest in broker engagement beyond the standard playbook, the opportunity is real. Most health plans approach brokers the same way. An insurer that consistently shows up with tools, data and content that make brokers more effective, without an obvious agenda attached, builds a kind of loyalty that product and pricing alone can’t buy.
The question worth asking isn’t: “How do we get brokers to sell more of our plan?”
It’s: “What does a broker actually need to walk into their next client meeting more confident and better prepared?”
Answer that question consistently, and the sales will follow.
Media Logic helps health plans develop broker engagement strategies that go beyond the standard playbook. Interested in exploring what that could look like for your organization?
Reach out to Media Logic today
