At Applied Net 2025, Kathy Hrach, senior vice president of product management at Ivans, shared how her company is helping insurance agencies and carriers work better together. Ivans has been key in connecting property and casualty (P&C) carriers with independent agencies across the US, making it easier to share information and improve service.
Hrach explained that Ivans started by focusing on making data sharing smoother between agencies and carriers so both sides have the same information at their fingertips. Now, Ivans feeds data directly into agency management systems like Applied Epic and EZLynx, which saves agencies from entering data manually and helps everyone stay on the same page.
Ivans has also built a distribution platform to reduce the headaches agencies face by having to enter data into many different carrier portals. Instead, agencies connect once to Ivans, which then links them to all the carrier quoting systems they need. This setup makes it simpler for agencies and carriers to work together and helps speed up the process of doing business.
But linking various systems isn’t easy. Each carrier uses different software—some use core systems like Guidewire or Duck Creek, while others have their own setups. Ivans works hard to make sure data from these different systems can be understood and used by agencies by standardizing and mapping the information properly. Hrach highlighted Ivans’ close work with core system providers, especially Guidewire, to create smooth connections to their cloud services.
Change can be a hurdle too. Introducing new systems or automations means agencies and carriers need to adjust their processes. Hrach admitted that some level of change management is always necessary to make things work well.
Ivans also listens to feedback from its customers to keep improving. It now provides quality reports to carriers, showing them what data agencies want but aren’t yet receiving. That helps carriers enhance their data feeds. One new product, Ivans Benchmarks, came from carriers asking for more insight into how their pricing and performance compare to others in the market.
Recently, Ivans combined several of its products, like Exchange, Bookroll, and Insights, into one platform. This lets users log in once to access everything, and it helps the different tools work together better. For example, carriers using both Bookroll and Ask Kodiak can now more easily find policies that fit their commercial needs, making things easier for both sides.
Looking ahead, Hrach sees a strong push for faster, simpler processes, especially around commercial submissions that currently involve many manual steps. Automation, cleaner data, and better connections with outside data sources are likely to be priorities. She also thinks technology will need to keep up with changing workflows to support smoother partnerships between agencies, carriers, and managing general agents (MGAs).
As the insurance world keeps evolving, Ivans aims to be a partner that helps everyone work more efficiently and with less hassle.