Short-Term Disability And Long-Term Disability Insurance - UPDATED

The State of Tennessee, through its Department of Finance and Administration, is seeking a fully-insured disability insurance services contractor to provide short-term disability (STD) and long-term disability (LTD) insurance benefits for central state government and state higher education agency employees. The procurement (RFP #31786-00186) requires a single contractor to administer voluntary STD coverage (100% employee-paid premiums) and mandatory LTD-N coverage (100% employer-paid premiums), beginning January 1, 2027, with implementation activities occurring from March 2026 through December 2026. Key deliverables include medical underwriting, disability determination, claims processing with benefit offsets, return-to-work programs, case management, call center operations, member communications, and comprehensive reporting. The state will evaluate responses based on technical qualifications (40 points), general qualifications and experience (10 points), and cost proposals (50 points). Critical procurement dates include a pre-response conference on September 10, 2025, written questions deadline of September 17, 2025, proposal response deadline of November 21, 2025, technical evaluations by January 6, 2026, and cost proposal scoring on January 7, 2026, with contract negotiations scheduled for January 12-14, 2026.

The solicitation requires respondents to demonstrate six years of disability insurance administration experience, including at least five employer accounts with one account having 10,000+ members, and a current Tennessee Certificate of Authority for group disability benefits. No specific set-aside designations for disadvantaged enterprises are mentioned. The incumbent vendor is Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife), whose current contract expires December 31, 2026. All current plan members will be automatically transferred to the new contractor on January 1, 2027, with guaranteed issue coverage and pre-existing condition limitation credits based on prior enrollment length. While no specific award value is explicitly stated, the contract will cover approximately 10,000+ members across eligible employee populations, with contractor compensation structured as per-member monthly premiums for STD and LTD coverage. The contract includes performance requirements with at-risk payments tied to service level agreements, and potential liquidated damages for failures to meet implementation milestones, plan design accuracy, and data security standards. The contract term is 70 months total, with 10 months of implementation and 60 months of benefit delivery from January 1, 2027, through December 31, 2031.