Client: Optumas
Industry: Healthcare Consulting & Actuarial · SLED
Service used: Content Refinement
Optumas RFP Case Study: Winning 6 of 7 Healthcare Actuarial RFPs
Reached an 86% win rate (6 of 7 wins) on healthcare actuarial proposals after Content Refinement strengthened how the team's compliance, positioning, and proof read to evaluators. The team called us their "RFP whisperers."
AT A GLANCE
86%
WIN RATE
6 of 7
WINS
Content
Refinement
1
Engagement Window
FROM THE FOUNDER · WIN STRATEGIST SERVICES
Founder · The RFP Success® Company
Author of 11 books · Lisa’s 30+ years across responding to, developing, and evaluating RFPs.
“You’re not losing because you’re unqualified. You’re losing because you’re undisciplined.”
SIGNED
01 / THE SITUATION
Strong Firm. Strong Proposals. And a Field Where Everyone Looked the Same.
Optumas competes for state healthcare and Medicaid actuarial work, the kind of contracts where the field is small, the requirements run deep, and every shortlisted firm can plausibly do the job. That last part is the trap. When evaluators face a stack of technically capable proposals, near parity becomes the norm, and the decision turns on details most firms never think to control.
Optumas is an Almost Winner. Their actuarial work is rigorous and their team reaches the shortlist on the strength of it. But a shortlist is not a win. They were submitting at a steady pace and converting fewer of those pursuits than the quality of their work deserved. The content was dense and accurate. What it was not, consistently, was easy for an evaluator to score in Optumas's favor.
They did not have a writing problem in the way most people mean it. They had a positioning problem. The proof of their value was on the page. It was just buried under the volume of technical detail that healthcare actuarial RFPs demand.
Technically capable was the price of entry. It was not the thing that won.
The proof of the win was already on the page. It was just buried under the technical detail.
02 / The Approach
Three Evaluator Lenses, Applied Before Submission.
Optumas engaged The RFP Success® Company for Content Refinement, one of three standalone Win Strategist services. The scope: strengthen their proposals through the evaluator’s lens, sharpening compliance, positioning, and proof before submission.
Lead Win Strategist Kevin Cleary and the team applied the D.A.R.E. Method, the tactical system inside the 4×4 Framework™ that drives a 76%+ win rate across The RFP Success® Company’s client portfolio. The refinement work pressure tested and reshaped each proposal across three evaluator lenses.
HOW WE DID IT
INSIDE A CONTENT REFINEMENT ENGAGEMENT.
The engagement covered both halves of how proposals get scored: the explicit items the evaluator's scorecard requires and the silent expectations the RFP never spells out. The D.A.R.E. Method caught both. The pattern for Optumas was consistent. The substance was there. The persuasion was not yet doing its job.
Three steps. One engagement cycle. Repeatable on every SLED pursuit.
BUILT ON THE D.A.R.E. METHOD
01
Compliance:
Did the response address every requirement, in the order asked, at the depth the evaluator needed to award full points? Healthcare actuarial RFPs are dense. Missed sub requirements quietly cost score.
02
Strategy:
Was Optumas positioned as the lowest risk, highest value choice, or merely as qualified? Did the win themes carry through the whole response, or fade after the executive summary?
03
Scoring:
Reading section by section against the evaluator's rubric, where were the easy points left on the table, and where did dense technical writing make the score harder to find than it should have been?
03 / Why It Worked
The Refinement Work Caught What a Confident Technical Team Cannot See in Its Own Writing.
When a firm knows its work is excellent, it tends to assume the excellence is obvious on the page. It rarely is. Evaluators do not score what the firm knows. They score what they can find, in the time they have, against the rubric in front of them.
The Content Refinement team worked through Optumas’s proposals from the evaluator’s seat. The compliance lens closed quiet point leaks. The strategy lens sharpened the win themes. The scoring lens moved the proof to where points get awarded. Optumas’s actuaries and consultants still owned every technical fact. The Win Strategist team strengthened how that expertise read to evaluators.
That is what Content Refinement delivers. It is strategic shaping of the content your team writes, so the reasons to choose you are easy for evaluators to find and score. It is not a guarantee.
Evaluators were not under rating the work. They were working too hard to find the reasons to score it highest.
04 / THE OUTCOME
6 of 7 Won. An 86% Win Rate.
After applying the refinement work across their pursuit set, Optumas won 6 of their next 7 proposals. An 86% win rate over the engagement window, in a field where a shortlisted firm winning a quarter of the time is closer to the industry norm.
The shift was not in the actuarial work, which was always strong. It was in how that work read to the people scoring it. The same expertise, presented so an evaluator could find the reasons to award the points, converted shortlist appearances into wins at a rate the team had not reached on their own.
Optumas’s word for it became the line their team still uses for The RFP Success® Company: “RFP whisperers.”
BEFORE REFINEMENT
AFTER REFINEMENT
Inconsistent win conversion
86% win rate
(6 of 7)
Win conversion
Inconsistent, near industry norm
6 of 7 won
WIN RATE
Shortlist strong, win light
86%
Proposal substance
Dense, technically complete
Unchanged (substance was never the gap)
BY THE NUMBERS
Six of seven pursuits won. An 86% win rate over the engagement window, in a field where winning a quarter of the time is closer to the norm.
86%
WIN RATE
6 of 7
WINS
1
Engagement Window
05 / THE QUOTE
“
OPTUMAS · HEALTHCARE CONSULTING & ACTUARIAL
Explore the Service
Interested in Content Refinement for Your Team?
Content Refinement is The RFP Success® Company’s Win Strategist engagement for teams with a specific must-win proposal. Your team writes the response and owns every technical fact. Our in-house team strengthens the strategy, compliance, persuasion, and final editorial quality so the content reads clearly to evaluators. It works for service-based businesses across 30+ industries.
Strategic shaping of key sections, compliance checks, and a final editorial review
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FREQUENTLY ASKED · EVALUATOR AWARE ANSWERS
Common Questions About Replicating This Outcome
Real questions from SLED service businesses considering Content Refinement to improve future proposal performance.
01
Is Optumas's 86% win rate typical or an outlier?
It sits above our company wide average. Across our client portfolio the win rate runs 76%+ against an industry average near 25%. Optumas's 86% over their engagement window reflects a focused pursuit set and a team that applied the refinement work consistently. We do not promise a specific number. We help most clients lift their results by roughly 20 to 30 percent over where they started.
02
Does Content Refinement work outside healthcare actuarial work?
Yes. Content Refinement strengthens proposals through the evaluator's lens, and the 4x4 Framework™ applies across 30+ industries. Your subject matter experts own the technical accuracy. We strengthen how that expertise is presented so evaluators can score it.
03
What did Optumas hire The RFP Success® Company to do?
Content Refinement. Our team worked through their proposals before submission, sharpening compliance, positioning, and proof for the people scoring them. Content Refinement is one of three standalone Win Strategist services and is priced from $6,500 to $12,000.
04
Does The RFP Success® Company write the proposals for you?
No. Your team writes the proposal. The Win Strategist team strengthens how it reads to evaluators. Optumas's actuaries and consultants owned the technical content. Our role was to shape it through evaluator eyes, not take the response out of their hands.
05
What is the first step to get a result like Optumas's?
Take the RFP Assessment, then our team will confirm your fit. Our team will recommend the Win Strategist service that fits your situation, or tell you honestly if we are not the right fit.
Question not on the list?
Email support@rfpsuccess.com and the team will get you an answer.
Email support@rfpsuccess.comREADY TO WIN · MAKE YOURS THE NEXT CASE STUDY
Ready to See What Evaluators See in Your Proposals?
Tell us about your business. We'll recommend the Win Strategist service that fits your situation, or tell you honestly if we're not the right fit.
Optumas is one engagement. The same evaluator perspective applies to every SLED pursuit you take on. Let's read your proposals together before the next one goes out.
Lisa Rehurek
Lisa Rehurek · Founder, The RFP Success® Company · 30+ years responding to, developing, and evaluating RFPs
