Ask Kodiak, Vertafore Integration Brings Transparency into Commercial Lines Appetite

Ask Kodiak, Vertafore Integration Brings Transparency into Commercial Lines Appetite

(Image source: Pixabay.)

Ask Kodiak (Winchester, Mass.), an API platform providing real-time appetite and eligibility for commercial lines insurance companies, MGAs, wholesalers and agents, has announced a partnership with Vertafore (Denver) to embed carrier-managed appetite and eligibility information within Vertafore’s insurance software solutions.

Michael Albert, Co-founder, Ask Kodiak.

Ask Kodiak reports that its integration with Vertafore’s ReferenceConnect, available immediately, makes carrier-managed appetite, eligibility, and marketing information available to the ReferenceConnect user community in real time. ReferenceConnect is designed to help agents and brokers grow new and existing business by providing information from over 40 insurance sources, and now, which now includes Ask Kodiak for commercial appetite.

“Integration projects in insurance are usually a cumbersome professional services project to hook Point A to Point B.; what we’re doing here with Vertafore, as with our other partners like EZLynx and TrustedChoice, is giving them a single point connection to a large network of insurers,” explains Michael Albert, co-founder, Ask Kodiak. “One effort, and you’re plugged into everybody. And the reverse is true too: our carrier customers don’t need to put together a project team for every vendor partner or digital agency. Just check a box, and their product appetite and eligibility models flow through the API to them like water in a clear mountain stream on a Colorado spring day.”

This new offering for ReferenceConnect uses Ask Kodiak’s new industry standard for high-definition classification of commercial insurance risks based on the latest edition of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS HD), the vendor reports. The partnership gives carriers the ability to precision target content to agents and brokers based on all levels of the NAICS hierarchy, including governing class, geography, business characteristics, coverage amounts, or any combination thereof for a prospective insured, according to an Ask Kodiak statement.

James Thom, Chief Product Officer, Vertafore.

“We’re excited to launch this integration for commercial appetite with Ask Kodiak,” comments James Thom, chief product officer, Vertafore. “Utilizing Ask Kodiak’s APIs, we can easily display their real-time appetite and eligibility for numerous carriers and MGAs in ReferenceConnect. This functionality is easily extensible to other widely-used Vertafore solutions as well – something we’re excited to do more of with the Ask Kodiak team.”

New Level of Transparency into Commercial Lines Appetite and Eligibility

Ask Kodiak describes the integration as providing a new level of transparency into commercial lines appetite and eligibility which translates into expanded opportunities for collaborating agents, brokers, and carriers. “Before Ask Kodiak, most carriers lacked a viable digital mechanism for sharing appetite, and lack of real-time insight into carrier appetite often results in no quote situations and lost business for distribution partners,” the company statement says.

As competition in the commercial lines market continues to tighten, insight into which carriers have the appetite and the best prices for needed coverages mean speed-to-market and a better overall customer experience, the Ask Kodiak statement asserts. With Ask Kodiak’s, customized user interface in ReferenceConnect, Vertafore’s carrier customers can now store, update, and share appetite and eligibility information with any distribution partner via APIs for maximum efficiency, underwriting accuracy, quote-to-bind speed, and conversion rates, the vendor says.

Vertafore Announces New Carrier and Agency Commercial Submissions Partners