Ask Kodiak
Commercial-lines appetite and eligibility platform that centralizes carrier appetite, rating, and product eligibility data for distribution partners via API and web interface.
askkodiak.com/ ↗Score
- Traction (named carrier deployments)5 carrier deployment(s) with public source.
- 2/5
- Maturity (years since founding)11 years since founding (2015).
- 4/5
- Coverage (insurance lines supported)1 line(s) supported: commercial.
- 1/5
- Analyst recognition (Celent / Gartner / Forrester / Everest / ISG)0 mention(s).
- n/a
What it does
Ask Kodiak is a modern commercial-lines appetite and eligibility platform founded in 2015 by Michael Albert and Allan Egbert, both veterans of Agencyport and earlier insurance software ventures. The platform helps carriers broadcast real-time appetite, eligibility rules, and product highlights to independent agents and brokers.
Product and distribution. Ask Kodiak operates as a two-sided marketplace: carriers store and update appetite and eligibility data via a web interface, and agents query that data through integrations with agency management systems (Applied Epic, EZLynx, Zywave, Vertafore ReferenceConnect) and comparative raters (Tarmika, Epic Quotes for Commercial Lines). Agents see a consolidated view of market eligibility for a given risk, accelerating the quoting process.
Carrier base and traction. By the time of acquisition, Ask Kodiak claimed over 30 carrier clients, including publicly named partnerships with Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and American Family. Two documented early wins are BTIS (a nationwide wholesale intermediary that adopted the platform for appetite management in May 2021) and CIP (Moore, Oklahoma—a sales-center focused platform that integrated Ask Kodiak's API in December 2020).
Acquisition and status. IVANS, the distribution division of Applied Systems, acquired Ask Kodiak in August 2021 without disclosing financial terms. The acquisition positioned Ask Kodiak as part of Applied Systems' broader ecosystem for commercial distribution. Ask Kodiak's co-founders, Albert and Egbert, continued to lead the acquired company and later spearheaded IVANS's innovation lab.
Analyst and market coverage. Ask Kodiak has not appeared in major analyst quadrants (Gartner, Celent, Forrester) as a standalone vendor since its acquisition. Sourced trade coverage is sparse; no public case studies on deployment speed, ROI, or claims resolution are available.
What it does not do. Ask Kodiak is strictly an appetite and eligibility layer; it is not a rating engine, underwriting workstation, or policy-admin system. It supports commercial lines only, not personal auto or homeowners.
Named deployments
- BTIS (US)Globe Newswire
- CIP (US)Globe Newswire
- Liberty Mutual (US)Globe Newswire
- Travelers (US)Globe Newswire
- American Family (US)Globe Newswire
Known limitations
- Ask Kodiak is narrowly scoped to commercial lines appetite and eligibility; it does not address personal lines markets, claims, underwriting workstations, or rating engines beyond carrier appetite signals. (IVANS)
- Post-acquisition by IVANS in August 2021, Ask Kodiak became a managed service within Applied Systems' portfolio rather than an independent venture; pricing and feature roadmap are no longer disclosed. (Globe Newswire)