Insurance Contracts and Tenders

Insurance procurement covers the cover public bodies buy and the related services. Typical lots are property, liability, motor and fleet, cyber, professional indemnity, engineering inspection and personal accident insurance, alongside insurance broker services, claims handling and risk management support. Buyers often tender several classes together as one programme.

Stotles brings together insurance tenders and contracts from 100+ portals into one search, so you do not have to check each portal separately, and you can set alerts for new opportunities across the UK and Ireland.

If you want to search the government portals directly, Find a Tender carries higher-value contracts across the UK and Contracts Finder carries lower-value contracts in England. Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales and eTendersNI cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Ireland's eTenders covers Irish public bodies, and many councils, NHS bodies and housing associations publish on their own e-tendering portals such as ProContract. Many councils and housing associations tender their insurance and broker services through their own portals, and housing association insurance tenders often appear on Public Contracts Scotland or Contracts Finder.

Insurance tenders are scored on the premium and the cover offered, alongside claims handling, risk management support and the service team the buyer will deal with. Brokers are scored on their market access, their fees and how they handle claims, and buyers often split the broker appointment from the insurance placement.

Insurers must be authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and insurance brokers must be authorised by the FCA to advise on and arrange cover. Tenders check financial strength and claims-paying capacity, and ask for evidence of similar public sector programmes at selection stage. Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers can be excluded for certain criminal convictions, insolvency or failure to pay tax.

Usually as multi-lot tenders where each class of cover is a lot, so insurers can bid for the lines they write, with a separate tender for the broker. Councils and housing groups often join together to tender a joint programme, and some buyers use a broker to run the market exercise for them.

Insurance is bought through several public frameworks. The Crown Commercial Service insurance and related services framework is a common route for broker appointments, including fleet and professional indemnity cover, and councils, universities and central government bodies often use it by direct award. The Crown Commercial Service insurance services dynamic purchasing system is used to place the cover itself, such as combined liability, property and motor fleet, by buyers including Belfast City Council and NHS trusts in Lincolnshire.

YPO runs an engineering inspection services framework that includes the insurance, called off by NHS trusts and London boroughs, and an insurance placement dynamic purchasing system where councils such as Kirklees run further competitions for annual motor policies. Insurance claims handling systems are bought as G-Cloud call-offs by councils including Leicestershire and Kirklees.

Councils and housing associations are the most frequent buyers, tendering property, liability and cyber cover, and universities, NHS trusts, combined authorities and public bodies also tender their cover. Large infrastructure programmes sometimes tender their own insurance programme.

Most insurance contracts run for around a year, because policies renew annually. Long-term agreements run for three to five years, which is why many insurance tenders come back round on a multi-year cycle.

Track policy renewal dates, long-term agreement expiry dates and preliminary market engagement notices, which show insurance work coming due ahead of a notice. On Stotles you can track those signals and the buyers behind them, then follow a notice from pre-tender through to award.

The core codes are 66510000 (Insurance services), 66516000 (Liability insurance services) and 66515200 (Property insurance services). Related codes seen on insurance notices include 66516500 (Professional liability insurance services), 66513200 (Contractor's all-risk insurance services) and 66514110 (Motor vehicle insurance services).