[Notice issued April 29, 2022; Notice Revised May 16, 2022]
The Alabama Department of Insurance (DOI) hereby gives notice of the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for qualified respondents to provide the DOI with the following professional services:
· Property and Casualty Insurance Actuarial Services
· Life and Disability Insurance Actuarial Services
· Certified Public Accounting Services
· Insurer Examination Services
· Insurer Market Conduct Examination Services
· Insurer Investments Examination Services
· Automated Insurer Examination Services
Contracts are contemplated to be awarded for a term of two years, from October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2024. Responses to the RFP must be received not later than June 1, 2022, at 3:00 PM CDT. Each response must include one original unredacted response in printed form plus one identical electronic copy in PDF format on one USB drive.
The RFPs are listed in the State of Alabama Accounting and Resource System(STAARS). You may learn about STAARS at http://vendors.alabama.gov/, and can register as a Vendor at https://procurement.staars.alabama.gov/webapp/PRDVSS1X1/AltSelfService.
Additional information is set forth in the following linked files, each accessible in Adobe format:
- RFP for Professional Actuarial Services for Property and Casualty Insurance: Adobe
- RFP for Professional Actuarial Services for Life and Disability Insurance: Adobe
- RFP for Professional CPA Services: Adobe
- RFP for Professional Insurer Examination Services: Adobe
- RFP for Professional Insurer Market Conduct Examination Services: Adobe
- RFP for Professional Insurer Investments Examination Services: Adobe
- RFP for Professional Computer Audit Services: Adobe
Exhibit B, the TeamMate® Confidentiality Agreement, must be submitted with every proposal except for CPA. A PDF copy is included above with each RFP. An additional copy in Word format is accessible here: Word
State law requires a Disclosure Statement to be submitted with every proposal. The form can be accessed from the DOI Website at https://www.aldoi.gov/PDF/Misc/DisclosureStatement.pdf.
For the procedures and forms for foreign corporations to qualify to do business in the State of Alabama, please visit the web page for the Alabama Secretary of State at http://sos.alabama.gov/
REVISIONSTO THIS NEWS RELEASE AND RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS WILL BE POSTED BELOW.
Questions 1-5 relate to the RFP for Life & Disability Actuarial Services:
Question 1. Who is the incumbent actuary providing these services?
Answer 1. We currently have four actuarial firms under contract for Life and Health Insurance Actuarial Services:
· INS Consultants
· Latta Langston Dyer
· Lepton Actuarial
· Lewis & Ellis
Question 2. How many years has the incumbent actuary provided the requested services?
Answer 2. The four actuarial firms currently under contract for Life and Health Insurance Actuarial Services have had contracts with the Alabama Department of Insurance (DOI) over the years as follows:
· INS Consultants - 5 times over last 6 years
· Latta Langston Dyer – Many years (over 30)
· Lepton Actuarial – Second Year
· Lewis & Ellis – Third Year
Question 3. Approximately how many L&D filings do you expect to have for review in a year?
Answer 3. L&D filings are typically handled by our staff actuary. On occasion these filings may be sent to contract actuaries to because of time constraints on multiple filings over a short time period. Here are the total amounts paid for contract L&D actuarial services over the last seven fiscal years, which includes work on filings and examinations:
· FY2016: $125,202
· FY2017: $180,946
· FY2018: $108,045
· FY2019: $139,980
· FY2020: $54,878
· FY2021: $179,570
· FY2022: $192,710
Question 4. Approximately how many L&D examinations will be performed in a year?
Answer 4. It difficult to say precisely the number of examinations in a particular time period. There were 13 domestic life and disability insurers, HMOs, and health care service plans licensed in this state as of December 31, 2021. These companies have to be examined every three to five years. In response to question 3 above you can see the amounts spent each of the last seven fiscal years on L&D actuary services, which includes filing and examination work.
Question 5. What are the hourly rate(s) being paid to the incumbent to perform this work?
Answer 5. The currently contracted actuaries are paid hourly rates ranging from a low of $100 per hour for market conduct examination work to a high of $300 for other financial examination work.
Question 6 relates to the RFP for Insurer Market Conduct Examination Services:
Question 6: Is there anything in particular in the requested response areas/ qualifications of the RFP#ALDOI-2022-05 (market conduct services) RFP that is NOT covered in the RFP#ALDOI-2022-04 (insurer examination services) that gives the Alabama DOI a particular reason to judge a vendor’s specific market conduct response differently than it would judge those same market conduct services within the context of the “insurer examination response”?
Answer 6: Some firms may specialize in a particular service, such as just Market Conduct exams or just automated exams, whereas other firms have staff for all services. Thus a proposal by a firm specializing in Market Conduct may score poorly on the general Insurer Examination RFP as compared to another firm with specialists in all areas, but it may score better on the Market Conduct RFP.
If a firm is offered a contract for the services described in RFP 04, the other proposals are somewhat redundant. However, when we are reviewing a proposal for RFP 04, we are primarily looking at the qualifications for the CFE and the hourly rate shown for the certified examiner. It can occur that a firm not selected for RFP 04 winds up being offered a contract under RFP 05, 06 or 07 because of stronger qualifications in those specific areas.