Applied Systems acquires Policy Works

Applied Systems announced Tuesday it has acquired Policy Works, a major platform for commercial lines business in Canada.

The acquisition will extend Applied’s position within the commercial lines market segment, driving greater connectivity and automation for commercial lines brokerages and insurers in the Canadian marketplace, Applied said in a press release.

“As Canada’s leading provider of broker management systems, rating services and connectivity solutions between brokers, insurers and their clients, Applied’s acquisition of Policy Works will enable tighter integration between the combined company’s solutions to drive significant value for our customers,” said Taylor Rhodes, CEO of Applied.

Policy Works provides point-of-sale solutions that allow brokers to instantly create legally binding commercial lines policies. Policy Works’ P&C Issuance module for Lloyd’s coverholders provides the capability to issue Lloyd’s policies instantly, utilizing a full library of proprietary P&C wordings, and producing declaration sheets that adhere to Lloyd’s branding requirements for subscribed and non-subscribed policies.

Kevin Campbell, CEO of Policy Works, said that in the digital age of insurance, brokerages require an integrated technology strategy to increase connectivity between insurers and insureds while automating workflows for greater efficiencies. “This acquisition provides our customers with access to new innovation, resources and scale to become digital brokerages and further accelerate growth of their businesses.”

Applied added that Canadian customers will benefit from tighter integration of Applied Rating Services, Applied Epic and Applied TAM. Steve Whitelaw, vice president of industry and partner relations with Applied, told Canadian Underwriter last week that Applied has seen continued growth in its user base – 72% more users year-over-year from Q3 2018 to Q3 2019 for its digital broker software. This software is a suite of broker products, including Applied Epic, Applied CSR24 (a customer self-service portal), Applied Mobile, Applied Analytics and Applied Cloud.

Applied’s acquisition of Policy Works comes about six months after it acquired TechCanary, a cloud-based insurance customer relationship management (CRM) system build natively on the Salesforce platform for brokerages, managing general agencies, wholesalers and insurers. That deal expanded Applied’s sales and marketing solutions and helps automate both front- and back-office workflows within a brokerage, insurers and MGA.

In 2018, Google, through its growth investment fund CapitalG, made a minority investment in Applied.