New Bid Deadline for Texas’ Insurance Verification System Looms

The Texas Department of Insurance revised the bid deadline competitive offers from individuals and/or entities for the establishment of a motor vehicle financial responsibility program for the verification of whether owners of motor vehicles have established financial responsibility in accordance with the terms of Senate Bill 1670, as enacted by the 79th Texas Legislature, Regular Session.

The new deadline for the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) is July 25, 2006, 3:00 p.m. CST.

A copy of the ITN and associated addendums can be downloaded from http://esbd.tbpc.state.tx.us/1380/bid_show.cfm?bidid=65521.

TDI has revised the original specifications for the project. According to Steve C. Hayden, president of Friendswood, Texas-based HDR, “the Texas Insurance Verification Program (TIVP) will still primarily be a database driven system where the agent for the state analyzes and matches data from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) and insurance policy data from licensed insurers. If a company/agent is awarded the contract to handle the TIVP the initial contract term will be for two years with three additional one-year options.”

In an e-mailed message to Insurance Journal, Hayden said the most significant change from the prior ITN is the use of a “Web Services Program” that would be used to access insurers’ “policy data directly from their own systems. This ‘Web Services Program’ combined with the core matching system essentially creates a hybrid of the database concept used in some states and the ‘interface’ model some insurers and insurance trade associations have been promoting,” Hayden wrote.

A request to bid the ITN was originally issued by TDI on Nov. 3, 2005, but the department opted not to award a contract and instead revise the original specifications and re-bid the project. At an insurance symposium held in Austin July 13, Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin said it was important to the department that the system be constructed correctly even if it took longer than anticipated to get it up and running.