Title
Extension of the Marsh Broker Contract an Additional Six Months to March 31, 2014 (B)
This item is a request for a one-time extension to the Marsh, Inc. Services Agreement to move the selection process out of the insurance marketing time frame.
Explanation
The city uses a competitive bid process to award our broker services contract. Typically, the City renews or awards this contract in September, which is the same time frame that the City's insurance program is being marketed by the current broker. This makes transitioning to a new provider very difficult and puts our bid process in the middle of our insurance marketing efforts. Staff has been somewhat disappointed in the responses to our previous attempts to market this service. The City only received three proposals during the last attempt to market broker services. In an effort to increase competition, staff believes moving the process to January will allow more providers to prepare a response for the City to consider. Most public entities market their insurance programs during August and September which makes it difficult for vendors to devote time to a bid process which would conflict with their current client base.
Using an April 1st start date would ensure that all policies placed by the City's provider during renewal would receive a thorough review by the broker placing the insurance policies before transferring responsibility to a potentially new vendor. This will also allow for a transition period for any new vendor to get familiar with our organizational structure and insurance needs prior to the next insurance renewal process. Staff has identified six to ten potential vendors with utilities and public entity backgrounds that will be asked to provide a proposal. Staff's hope is that more competition will result in a lower annual fee. The City only accepts a fee for service pricing model and does not consider a commission based fee for this service.
March USA, Inc. has agreed to con...
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