12-001286 Administrator for Continuing Education Program for North Carolina Insurance Producers and Adjusters

The North Carolina Department of Insurance is soliciting proposals to administer the Continuing Education (CE) program for licensed insurance producers, resident and non-resident adjusters who designate North Carolina as their home state, with all program costs borne entirely by the vendor through fees collected from licensees, as authorized under North Carolina General Statutes §58-33-130, ensuring zero financial burden on the State. The vendor must deliver a comprehensive CE administration system including real-time data exchange via RESTful API, course recordkeeping, transcript management, audit functions, reporting, and an annual customer satisfaction survey with corrective action plans, all compliant with 11 NCAC 06A.0800, NAIC reciprocity standards, and state privacy laws. The contract is structured as a three-year base term with two optional one-year extensions, awarded on a trade-off basis rather than lowest price technically acceptable, where technical merit (90 points) outweighs cost (10 points), with evaluation focused on systems security engineering, relevant experience, scope of services, technical capability, fee reconciliation, customer service, and proposal clarity. Essential deliverables include monthly and annual reports in standard office formats, a detailed work plan, secure data infrastructure, and full compliance with operational constraints such as prohibiting vendor bias, ensuring instructional integrity of courses, and maintaining disaster recovery protocols for licensee records. Vendors must submit proposals exclusively through the NC eProcurement Sourcing Tool on the Ariba Network by August 28, 2026, including mandatory attachments for pricing, HUB participation, and customer references, and must adhere to strict security, confidentiality, and record retention protocols, with all contract-developed materials deemed state property. Personnel substitutions require prior written approval, system changes require 90-day notice, and vendor staff may be subject to background checks at the vendor’s expense, while FOB-destination terms apply to any physical materials, with title and transit costs remaining with the vendor. Despite the absence of formal FAR clause language or specified payment offices and accounting lines, the contract mandates full adherence to state laws including prompt payment, anti-bribery, E-Verify, and nondiscrimination requirements, with no UEI, CAGE, or small business self-certification required, though HUB participation is encouraged but optional.