Earlier this week, Applied Systems announced that it has acquired Tarmika, a commercial lines rating solution for small business insurance.

The acquisition expands Applied's commercial quoting and Ivans' distribution connectivity solutions to create a more valuable and digital distribution experience at each stage of the insurance lifecycle, the company said in a press release. 

“Applied has been on a journey to solve the commercial lines distribution challenge with a mission to create a fully-digital roundtrip of insurance for agents and carriers—from search and classification to carrier appetite, and then on to quote to bind," said Taylor Rhodes, chief executive officer, Applied Systems.

“Our investment in Tarmika is the next step in creating a more connected, collaborative, and efficient distribution channel that brings agencies, carriers and partners closer together to create mutual value and move our industry forward," he said.

Tarmika will be integrated with Applied Epic and EZLynx, and users can expect embedded commercial lines quoting capabilities powered by Tarmika natively in their management systems.

“Tarmika was created to solve the major inefficiencies agencies experienced in their daily lives trying to grow their commercial book of business," said Raghav Tanna, CEO and founder of Tarmika. “This acquisition will help us further our innovative mission to bring the same efficiencies of personal lines quoting to commercial lines operations, and we are excited to continue this journey with Applied!"

Additionally, Tarmika's panel of commercial lines products will be integrated into Ivans Distribution Platform (IDP). The combination aims to make IDP the most robust commercial distribution platform available, creating more value by expanding opportunities for digital distribution for carriers, agencies and Ivans' growing list of technology partners.

“A big problem in our industry has been the lack of connectivity between agents and carriers, costing carriers time and expense to connect to multiple distribution channels and limiting new business opportunities," said Reid Holzworth, chief executive officer, Ivans. “This acquisition will bring together Tarmika's robust panel of commercial lines products with Ivans' innovative distribution technology, building the industry's largest commercial lines distribution platform for the benefit of agencies, carriers, and technology partners alike."

The acquisition marks another improvement to Applied's commercial lines offering. Last year, the software platform announced that it had acquired Ask Kodiak, an InsurTech providing commercial lines market appetite and search capabilities for the independent agency channel.

Will Jones is IA editor-in-chief.