2016_08_10_HSFE60-16-R-0004_Attachment_B_QASP_Revised.pdf

National Flood Insurance Program Direct Servicing Agent

Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan

August 10, 2016

PROCUREMENT SENSITIVE

QASP – DSA

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INTRODUCTION

This Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP) has been developed to evaluate contractor actions while implementing the Statement of Objectives (SOO). It is designed to provide an effective surveillance method of monitoring contractor performance. The QASP provides a systematic method to evaluate the services the contractor is required to furnish.

This QASP is based on the premise that the government desires to maintain a quality standard in operating, maintaining, and servicing flood insurance policies and that a service contract is the best means of achieving this objective.

The contractor, not the government, is responsible for management and quality control actions to meet the terms of the contract. The role of the government is quality assurance to ensure contract standards are achieved.

In the contract the quality control program is the driver for product quality. The contractor is required to develop a comprehensive program of inspections and monitoring actions. The first major step to ensuring a “self-correcting” contract is approving a quality control program that provides the measures needed to lead the contractor to success.

Once the quality control program is approved, careful application of the process and standards presented in the remainder of this document will ensure a robust quality assurance program.

PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND METRICS

• Standards: The performance standards are established in the performance requirements summary (PRS), which is included below. The standards are: timeliness, quality of financial services, quality of claims services, quality of underwriting, quality of customer service, and quality of data.

• Metrics: The measures for ensuring compliance with the standards are identified in the performance requirements summary.

METHOD OF SURVEILLANCE

The COR or his or her designee, including program technical monitors, will conduct evaluations of all of the items identified in the PRS in a manner consistent with the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan, or any other method at the COR’s discretion. The COR may receive input through customer feedback as well as Federal Insurance personnel and other government personnel. The COR will pass any complaints to the contractor for correction. Complaints may be submitted by any form of communication, including fax, voice mail, and e-mail.

Contractor performance will be surveyed to determine if it meets the contract standards. A variety of surveillance methods will be used.

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• Random Sampling: FEMA may conduct random sampling when the Project Officer or designated FEMA representative samples services to determine if the level of performance is acceptable based on a statistically random sample.

• Periodic inspection of the processes or output: FEMA shall conduct annual claims and underwriting operations reviews, and may conduct periodic inspections when the Project Officer or designated FEMA representative chooses the location and time to conduct surveillance in other than a statistically random manner.

• Customer complaints: FEMA may use validated customer complaints as the basis for actions against the Contractor.

• Excessive volume: If processing volumes exceed 200% in any given month, the Contracting Officer will be notified to request a waiver for the specific SSPA 1, 5, or 6.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

Performance of a service will be evaluated to determine whether or not it meets the performance requirements of the contract. When the performance requirement is not met, the Contracting Officer will issue a Contract Discrepancy Report (CDR) to the Contractor.

The Contractor shall respond to the CDR by completing the appropriate blocks of the form and returning it to the Contracting Officer within 15 calendar days of receipt. Upon evaluation of the Contractor’s response to a CDR the Contractor’s payment for the month in which the performance in question occurred will be calculated as stated in paragraph 4. In the case of CDRs issued as the result of other methods of surveillance, the Contracting Officer shall take appropriate measures according to the clause entitled “Inspection of Services”.

The Government reserves the right to exercise forbearance on a case-by-case basis during periods of unusually high workloads. This discretion would include the waiving of a Disincentive when an SLA is not met when the volume of transactions is greater than 200% of the volume of transactions for the three

(3) preceding months.

PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY

The PRS is organized in accordance with:

• Column 1 - Selected Service Performance Area (SSPA): Lists the SSPA that the government will surveil. The absence of any contract requirement from the PRS shall not detract from its enforceability to limit the rights or remedies of the government under any other provisions of the contract, including the clauses entitled “Inspection of Services” and “Default”.

• Column 2 – Standard: Defines the standard of performance for each listed SSPA.

• Column 3 - Performance Requirement: : Sets forth the maximum allowable deviation from standard performance for that service that may occur before the government will invoke the remedies set forth in FAR 52.212-4(a) of re-performance at no additional price increase or to seek equitable adjustment for non-conforming services. The Government at all

4 | P a g e times reserves the right to terminate the BPA or task order for cause as set forth in FAR 52.212-4(m).

• Column 4 - Method of Surveillance: Sets forth the surveillance methods the Government will use to evaluate the contractor’s performance for the listed tasks. This column also establishes the period of the planned surveillance.

PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY

Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4

Selected Service Performance Area (SSPA)

Standard Performance

Requirement* Method of

Surveillance

(SSPA-1)

Timeliness

1a. Application Processing completed within 7 business days.

Average application processing shall be no more than 7 business days, including no more than an average of 3 requests for information back to the applicant.

Contractor performance tracking report receipt and FEMA verification.

Period: Monthly

1b. Renewal Processing completed within 3 business days.

Average renewal processing shall be no more than 3 business days.

Contractor performance

1c. Endorsement Processing completed within 3 business days.

Average endorsement processing shall be no more than 3 business days.

Contractor performance

1d. Cancellation and Refund Processing completed within 7 business days.

Average cancellation processing shall be no more than 7 business days.

Contractor performance

1e. Claims Adjustment and examination completed 45 business days from receipt of Notice of Loss. Claims check mailed 7 business days from

No more than 2% of the claims adjustments shall be processed later than then specified timeframe.

Contractor performance

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Method of

Surveillance completion.

1f. IFICO in place 72 hours from COR notification.

IFICO in place 72 hours from COR notification.

Contractor performance

1g. Immediate responses to FEMA’s requests for claims files, policyholder data, and other requests for information.

Responses to FEMA’s requests for claims files, policyholder data, and other requests for information are provided in no more than 2 business days.

Periodic surveillance:

-Observation;

-FEMA employee feedback.

(SSPA-2)

Quality of Financial Services

Contractor receives unqualified opinion and/ or no finding or recommendations for the annual DHS/NFIP financial statement audit.

Unqualified auditor’s opinion and/or no NFRs for the financial audit.

Periodic surveillance:

-Observation -Receipt and verification -Management status reports

Period: Annual

(SSPA-3)

Claims Service

Satisfactory review of claims.

Satisfactory review of claims with less than 10% error rate.

Annual Claims Operation Review

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(SSPA-4)

Underwriting

Satisfactory review of underwriting.

Satisfactory review of underwriting experience with less than 10% error rate.

Annual Underwriting Operation Review

(SSPA-5)

Customer Experience /

Service

5a. Customer Satisfaction: Highly satisfied customer review ratings.

Overall average CSAT should not fall below

7.0 / 10 (or less than .5 below NFIP-wide average).

-Annual customer experience surveys and focus groups to evaluate CSAT and drivers of CSAT -Customer complaints

5b. Customer Communications:

-Calls are resolved as efficiently and effectively as possible and fully answer the customer’s question;

-Written correspondence is timely, accurate, clear, and free of typographic errors.

- 90% of calls fully and accurately respond to customer queries based on FEMA standards and guidance;

- 95% of written correspondence is deemed accurate based on FEMA standards and guidance;

- 90% of written correspondence is free from typographical errors.

Periodic surveillance:

-customer complaints;

-monitoring of customer calls;

-random sampling of correspondence.

5c. Call Center Operations:

-No calls presented receive a busy signal;

-85% of calls are answered by a live representative in the first 20 seconds;

--call abandonment rate is less than 5%.

- 80% of calls are answered by a live representative in the first 20 seconds;

-Call abandonment rate is less than 8%, calls abandoned after 20 seconds must not exceed 5%.

- Periodic surveillance of live customer calls;

- Periodic surveillance of recorded customer calls;

- Monthly Contractor performance tracking report receipt and FEMA verification.

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(SSPA-6)

Quality of Data

Meet the TRRP requirements for the quality of data and financial reconciliation.

Satisfactory performance for policy errors is less than 5% for critical errors and less than 2% for claim errors.

Monthly Policy and Claim Error Summary Reports produced by the Systems and Services Contractor

(SSPA-7)

Customer Experience Laboratory

All timelines and requirements of laboratory task orders are met.

All timelines and requirements of the laboratory are met, within defined task order performance requirements.

Periodic Surveillance:

-Observation -Reports delivered as defined by the Task Order

*FEMA may renegotiate performance requirements prior to exercising option years