SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE MARKET RESEARCH

For

Bureau’s Insurance Advisor

1. SUBMITTAL INFORMATION

ISSUE DATE: September 4, 2026

DUE DATE FOR RESPONSES: October 13, 2026, 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SUBMIT RESPONSES TO: Khadija.Osman@dot.gov and Carolyn.Lethert@dot.gov

QUESTIONS: Submit any questions on this RFI no later than 9/18/26.

See below Section 5 entitled “REQUESTED CONTENT OF RESPONSES TO THIS SOURCES SOUGHT” for submittal content instructions.

2. INTRODUCTION

This is a Sources Sought (SS) notice (also known as a Request for Information (RFI)). This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is conducting a market survey to identify potential sources for an anticipated contract for the Build America Bureau. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information for planning purposes regarding the availability and capability of qualified sources to perform the work.

Pursuant to 48 C.F.R. Part 10, the Government is conducting market research to:

• Determine what Commercial sources exist that are capable of satisfying the Government’s requirements listed below in Section 4,

• Determine the practices of potential contractors,

• Determine the size and Small Business status of potential sources, and

• Determine the level of competition and possible acquisition strategies (i.e., 8(a), set-aside or full and open).

This SS is issued solely for informational, market research, and planning purposes and does not commit the Government to any further contract actions, i.e., solicitation and/or contract.

Respondents are advised that the United States Government will not pay for any information or administrative cost incurred in responding to this SS request. Not responding to this SS does not preclude participation in any future Request for Proposals (RFP) that may be issued.

Responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the U.S Government to form a binding contract.

3. BACKGROUND

The purpose for this SS is to conduct market research to identify potential offerors having an mailto:Khadija.Osman@dot.gov mailto:Carolyn.Lethert@dot.gov interest in performing the work, and the resources required to accomplish the work described herein. Consideration will be given to small business concerns, including the sub-categories of Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone), 8(a), Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) and woman-owned as well as identifying Best in Class and Spend Under Management solutions as identified in OMB Memorandum M-19-13 and subsequent memos. The result of this market research will contribute to determining the method of procurement.

This document contains a draft scope of work (Section 4 below). Your firm’s response regarding your firm’s experience and capabilities will be used to determine the availability of potential businesses, both large and small, and their capabilities in meeting the Government’s requirement.

Through this SS notice, FHWA is seeking not only to identify potential sources for an anticipated contract but also to solicit feedback on the draft Scope of Work (SOW) itself, including on the content of the tasks and deliverables and reasonableness of the schedule that is described below.

4. DRAFT SCOPE OF WORK

The proposed NAICS code for this requirement are 524298 (All Other Insurance Related Activities) and 524210 (Insurance Agencies and Brokerages). The proposed product service code for this requirement are R499 (Support Professional: Other) and R708 (Support Management: Financial Services).

BACKGROUND

The Build America Bureau (the Bureau) within the U.S. Department of Transportation serves as a central hub for financing and technical assistance, facilitating infrastructure investment across the nation. Through federal credit programs (principally the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF)) the Bureau provides direct loans, loan guarantees, and credit lines to public and private sponsors. Further information about the Credit Programs can be found at https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica.

The eligible project universe (below) is unusually broad for a single lender:

Asset Classes Representative asset types

Highway Managed lanes, toll roads, bridges, tunnels, interchanges

Transit Heavy/light/commuter rail, BRT, streetcar, facilities, fleet, systems

Intercity passenger rail Conventional and high-speed rail, stations, corridor programs https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/M-19-13.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/M-19-13.pdf

Asset Classes Representative asset types

Freight rail Class I–III infrastructure, yards, intermodal terminals, equipment, PTC

Ports and maritime Landside and waterside infrastructure, intermodal connectors, terminal equipment

Aviation Terminals, airfield and landside infrastructure, people movers, CONRAC, airport P3

Transit-oriented development (TOD)

Multifamily, mixed-use, commercial, hospitality, parking, station-area infrastructure

Crosscutting Alternative fueling, resilience, technology and OT cybersecurity

Because Bureau credit facilities are repaid from dedicated project revenue streams, such as toll collections, sales tax pledges, farebox revenues, availability payments, or real estate lease payments, the USDOT acts in the capacity of a prudent, sophisticated commercial lender.

Consequently, the Bureau must conduct rigorous due diligence to safeguard federal financial interests. A cornerstone of this due diligence is the engagement of specialized independent Insurance Advisors (IAs). IAs evaluate complex insurance architectures, assess risk allocations across public-private partnership (P3) agreements and design-build contracts, review casualty and property coverage adequacy, verify business interruption protections, and monitor post-closing insurance compliance throughout the multi-decade debt lifecycle.

OBJECTIVE

The objectives for any resulting acquisition are to:

• Ensure seamless access to insurance advisory professionals with deep expertise across diverse asset classes, ranging from traditional highway toll concessions and complex rail infrastructure (including positive train control and shared-track operations) to commercial seaports, airside infrastructure, and commercial or residential TOD structures.

• Obtain genuinely independent advice from parties with no placement, brokerage, commission, or contingent compensation interest in the program reviewed.

• Cover the full borrower-type range, including public self-insured, pooled, and captive programs, and all Bureau asset classes and specialty lines.

• Develop standardized scope modules and cost-efficient fee frameworks that lower the overall financial cost of IA reviews, particularly for small-scale projects/borrowers, and transit-oriented development loans where high advisory expenses may act as a structural barrier.

• Implement scalable protocols for annual insurance policy renewals, loss monitoring, claims tracking, and casualty proceeds reinstatement reviews across the Bureau's active loan portfolio throughout the entire repayment term.

SCOPE OF WORK / TASK AREAS

The following describes the anticipated scope. It is provided for market research purposes and is subject to change. Work would be ordered by task order; not all tasks would be exercised on every transaction, and the Bureau anticipates scaling scope to transaction size, complexity, and risk. The selected Lender’s Insurance Advisor(s) shall provide comprehensive insurance risk assessment, contractual analysis, negotiation support, and ongoing portfolio monitoring to support the Bureau's underwriting and portfolio management divisions.

The scope can be broken into the following high-level Tasks, and to be further detailed (and split into sub tasks) in acquisition documents:

• Task 1: Screening

Rapid assessment at Letter of Interest or early creditworthiness stage: identification of the insurance structure contemplated (sponsor-procured, contractor-procured, wrap-up, self-insured, pooled, captive); preliminary view on whether contemplated coverage and limits are consistent with market practice; identification of red-flag exposures; and recommended scope for full review.

• Task 2: Pre-Closing Review Conducts thorough risk due diligence during the Bureau's credit underwriting process to verify that project risk profiles are adequately mitigated through commercial insurance and contractual indemnities. Evaluates draft project agreements (e.g.: design-build contracts, operations and maintenance agreements, off-take contracts) to analyze the allocation of risk across the project participants. This analysis evaluates liability caps, indemnity structures, waiver of subrogation provisions, and force majeure definitions to ensure no unmitigated risks threaten debt service coverage.

The advisor evaluates proposed construction-phase insurance coverages (e.g.: Builder's Risk, Delay in Start-Up (DSU), Commercial General Liability, Marine Cargo, Worker's Compensation, and Professional Liability) and operational-phase coverages (e.g.: including Property, Business Interruption, Third-Party Liability, Environmental Impairment, Cyber Security, and Political Risk). These reviews verify policy terms, conditions, deductibles, self-insured retentions, sub-limits, and policy limits against market standards. Due diligence activities adapt specifically to the unique risk exposures of each eligible asset class.

Additionally, the advisor performs insurance market availability and pricing benchmark analyses to confirm that required coverages are commercially achievable at reasonable premiums and that long-term insurance cost projections within project financial models are realistic

• Task 3: Negotiation and Transaction Closing Support

Drafting and review of insurance representations, covenants, and the schedule of required insurance; minimum limits, maximum deductibles, insurer rating criteria and required endorsements; conditions precedent to closing and disbursement; loss proceeds provisions and their interaction with restoration, mandatory prepayment, and intercreditor arrangements;

insurance events of default, cure rights, step-in and force-placement; consent and waiver mechanics for coverage unavailability or commercially unreasonable pricing; and negotiation support to Bureau counsel and credit staff.

• Task 4: Post-Closing Portfolio Valuation and Monitoring (ad hoc)

Verification at closing of certificates, binders, endorsements and policy wordings against the schedule of required insurance, including identification of gaps between certificates and actual policy terms; annual and renewal-cycle review across the loan term; assessment of material changes in coverage, limits, retentions or insurer security; portfolio-level tracking of compliance status and expiring coverage; and prompt notification of non-compliance, cancellation, or adverse market developments.

• Task 5: Claims, loss events, and workout (ad hoc) Coverage assessment, notification adequacy and preservation of rights following a loss;

monitoring of adjustment and settlement; assessment of proceeds sufficiency for restoration and of proceeds application under the loan documents; business interruption quantification support; and insurance analysis in restructuring, workout, default, and consent scenarios.

• Task 6: Public Entity Self-Insurance, Pools, and Captives (ad hoc) Assessment of governmental self-insurance and risk pool arrangements: funding adequacy, actuarial basis of reserves, pool membership, joint and several exposure, excess and reinsurance attachment, and historical loss experience; review of captive capitalization, domicile, regulatory standing, and reinsurance support; assessment of statutory tort claim caps, sovereign immunity, and their effect on both exposure and recovery; and evaluation of whether a public borrower's self-insured program provides risk transfer comparable to a commercially insured program for Bureau credit purposes.

• Task 7: Program-Level and Advisory Support (ad hoc) The advisor provides strategic advisory services to continuously provide guidance to the Bureau.

5. SKILLS AND EXPERTISE REQUIRED

The Bureau is not procuring brokerage, placement, risk management consulting to an owner, or claims advocacy on behalf of an insured. It is procuring independent advice rendered to a secured lender by a party with no economic interest in the placement of the program under review.

The Contractor must possess deep technical risk expertise across commercial lines, including property, liability, environmental, political risk, and construction-all-risk, alongside proven experience in project finance and debt structuring. Qualified advisory teams must demonstrate the ability to evaluate policy coverage gaps, sub-limits, and insurer counterparty risk (e.g., A.M. Best ratings) relative to asset replacement values. Crucially, vendors need specialized skills in drafting, negotiating, and aligning loan covenant insurance provisions with risk allocations across borrower, EPC contractor, and operator agreements, ensuring robust protections such as lender loss payee endorsements, additional insured status, and waivers of subrogation.

Additionally, vendors must demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of federal lending mandates (e.g., Flood Disaster Protection Act, TRIA), strict structural independence from policy sales to avoid conflicts of interest, and robust operational capabilities for lifecycle portfolio monitoring. RFI responses should highlight staff holding recognized industry credentials, such as Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) or Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designations, backed by a documented track record of providing independent LIA advisory services to federal credit programs, government agencies, or major institutional lenders on complex transactions.

Prior service as insurance advisor to project finance lenders, rating agencies, multilateral or export credit institutions, or public credit programs is the most directly relevant experience.

Respondents should identify which capabilities they hold in house, which they would team for, and which they consider unrealistic to require.

6. REQUESTED CONTENT OF RESPONSES

Interested parties who consider their firms qualified to perform the above-listed services are invited to submit responses to this SS as follows:

Format requirements are:

• Electronic responses only. No hard copy submissions will be accepted.

• 8.5”x11” size pages, with 1” margins on all sides and prepared in Microsoft Word or PDF format.

• Submissions shall include a cover page as described below.

• Not more than seven pages in length, including all items submitted (not including cover page, table of contents, and acronym list).

• Font size should be 12 point or larger.

• Proprietary information must not be submitted in response to this SS.

The response to this SS must include:

Cover Page: The cover page does not count towards the page limit. The cover page should contain at a minimum the following information:

- Company name

- Primary Point of Contact, including phone number and email address

- SAM.GOV Unique Entity ID (UEI)

- NAICS Code – a statement on what NAICS your firm believes is most appropriate for this requirement

- General Services Administration (GSA) Contract Number and Schedule, if applicable.

- GSA OASIS+ Contract Number, if applicable.

- Other Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts available for DOT use, if applicable

- Business Size: identify all applicable classifications for your organization under

NAICS 524298 and 524210 ( as well as any other NAICS identified for this work.

Please note if certain classifications only apply to certain contract vehicles.

• Small business?

• Woman-owned business?

• 8(a) business?

• Small disadvantaged business?

• HUBZone business?

• SDVOB business?

• Non-profit?

• Other relevant business type information

- Would you be able to fulfil this entire requirement alone or with subcontractors?

SS Response: To support the Government’s review of the Contractor’s technical ability and the market capacity, the following questions should be directly addressed with regard to both the responding business entity and proposed personnel (no more than 2 pages):

a. Describe your experience acting as lender's or independent insurance advisor for institutional lenders, credit rating agencies, multilateral or export credit institutions, or public credit programs, as distinct from broker or risk-management advisory to owners and sponsors.

b. Is your firm a broker, a broker affiliate, an independent consultancy, an actuarial or risk-modeling firm, a law firm, or another model? Describe any revenue derived from placement, commissions, contingent compensation, reinsurance, or claims advocacy.

c. Which asset classes and specialty lines can you cover with in-house senior personnel (construction, marine, aviation, rail, real estate, catastrophe modeling, surety, public entity self-insurance, captives)? Which would require teaming?

d. How deep is the market of firms that can provide independent lender's insurance advice without placement conflicts? Approximately how many firms would you expect to be able to compete?

e. What is your capacity for concurrent assignments and for recurring annual renewal reviews across a growing portfolio?

Note: Responses may include links or web addresses that demonstrate evidence of your technical expertise (i.e., final reports, technical journals, peer reviewed papers, etc.).

In addition, to support the Bureau’s effort to improve the acquisition process, we request feedback (if any) on the questions below (no more than 5 pages). You may respond to as many questions as desired so long as responses fit within the page limit. Please note the appropriate question number in your response.:

• Acquisition strategy and contract structure

1. Should lender's insurance advisory be procured as a standalone vehicle, as a discipline within a broader lender's advisory vehicle alongside technical and financial advisors, or as a subcontracted specialty under a technical advisory prime? What are the trade-offs for independence, speed, and cost?

2. If standalone, what contract vehicle and structure would best deliver speed and flexibility (a multiple-award IDIQ with fair-opportunity competition, a multiple-award IDIQ with directed or streamlined ordering below a threshold, blanket purchase agreements under GSA schedules, a single award IDIQ or BPA, an existing government-wide vehicle, or another approach)? What are the trade-offs from your perspective?

3. How should the Bureau structure technical qualifications and competition requirements at the task order level to allow rapid selection among pre-qualified insurance firms without creating lengthy proposal preparation cycles?

4. Would you recommend separating awards according to asset types or geographic regions (or both)? What are the trade-offs from your perspective? If grouped, which ones?

5. What specific Conflict of Interest (COI) requirements or disclosure processes could hinder your firm from bidding, and what concrete simplifications, such as streamlined disclosure forms, standard ethical wall protocols, or pre-clearing mechanisms, would enable you to submit proposals while maintaining institutional integrity?.

• Speed of acquisition and task order execution

6. In your experience with Federal technical advisory procurements, what specifically drives the longest delays: solicitation development, proposal preparation, evaluation, COI resolution, security or onboarding, or task order pricing negotiation?

7. What proposal simplifications would most reduce your response time and cost without materially reducing the Bureau’s ability to discriminate among offerors: page limits, resumes and pricing only, phased down-select, self-scoring?

8. How should individual task order (TO) for project be awarded: compete each TO with panel, automatically assign (work down list) or other?

9. What turnaround standards are realistic for: screening assessment; full pre-closing insurance review; certificate and endorsement verification at closing; annual renewal review; loss-event initial coverage assessment?

10. What ordering mechanics would allow the Bureau to launch a due diligence effort within days rather than weeks, such as pre-priced scope templates by transaction archetype, pre-negotiated labor rates and levels of effort, standing not-to-exceed authorizations, pre-cleared key personnel?

• Pricing

11. What pricing arrangement is most appropriate by task type (firm-fixed-price by defined scope, labor-hour with ceiling, fixed annual fee for portfolio compliance, per-review unit pricing)?

12. Can pre-closing review be firm-fixed-priced before policy documentation is available?

What assumptions and re-pricing triggers would you require?

13. Would unit or catalog pricing keyed to transaction archetype (by asset class, borrower type, construction value band, and whether catastrophe modeling is required) be workable? What variables most drive your level of effort?

14. How should catastrophe modeling, actuarial review of self-insured programs, and claims support be priced, given their variable and specialized nature?

15. Where advisory costs are borne by the borrower (a no cost contract), what invoicing and cost transparency mechanics work well, and what disputes should the Bureau anticipate?

16. What is the minimum task order value at which an assignment is worth your firm's administrative cost to price, staff, and invoice? How should the Bureau handle recurring low-value work such as annual certificate reviews?

17. Would you support a standing retainer or subscription arrangement covering routine portfolio compliance review, with transactional diligence ordered separately? How would you structure and price it?

18. Are there billing or administrative practices associated with federal government contracts that materially increase your cost of doing business with the Bureau that could be simplified?

• Other

19. What would make this vehicle attractive to firms that do not currently pursue Federal work, including firms whose lender’s advisory practice is primarily commercial?

20. What documentation do you most often find missing or late from sponsors, and what should the Bureau require at application to shorten the review cycle?

21. Identify any assumptions in this RFI you believe are unrealistic, and any scope elements that should be added, removed, or restructured.

22. Provide any other recommendations that would improve the speed, quality, or cost-effectiveness of the Bureau's acquisition and use of lender's insurance advisory services.

Questions: As a part of this SS, you may submit any questions or comments on the Section

4 Draft Scope of Work. This will not count towards the page limit if the questions are submitted in a separately labeled document. FHWA reserves the right not to provide responses to these questions and comments but will use these questions and comments in continuing to define its requirement.

7. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

To fully comprehend the information contained within a response to this Sources Sought, there may be a need to seek further clarification from respondents. This clarification may be requested in the form of brief verbal communication by telephone; written communication;

electronic communication; or a request for a presentation of the response to a specific FHWA/DOT group or groups. FHWA reserves the right to seek additional information from respondents identified with unique solutions that are determined to be beneficial to FHWA.