Tarmika Review

Tarmika is the commercial-lines answer to the personal-lines raters that dominate this category. Where EZLynx and PL Rating shine on auto and home, Tarmika is a single-entry small-business commercial rater — enter the risk once and get comparative quotes back for BOP, general liability, workers' comp, commercial auto, and more. Its agency-facing product is called Bridge; its embedded-insurance product is Tunnel. Applied Systems acquired Tarmika in 2022, so it now sits inside the Applied ecosystem alongside EZLynx. Pricing is quote-only.

One correction worth stating plainly, because it circulates: Tarmika is an Applied Systems company, not a Verisk product. It was founded in 2018 by former agents and carrier reps and acquired by Applied in 2022.

What Is Tarmika #

Tarmika is a commercial-lines comparative rater built to streamline small-commercial quoting. The vendor describes it as "a single entry solution streamlining the commercial quoting process": you enter a business risk's information one time and Tarmika sends it out to multiple carriers, returning comparative quotes — instead of you filling the same small-business application across a stack of carrier portals. It supports more than 20,000 business classes, which is the practical measure of how much of the small-commercial market it can actually quote.

Commercial rating is harder than personal-lines rating — every class of business asks different underwriting questions, and carrier appetite varies by class and state — which is why a genuinely useful commercial rater is rarer than a personal-lines one. Tarmika sits between the agency and its carriers: it takes the agent's single entry, translates it into what each carrier needs, and brings competing quotes back so the agent can place the risk that best fits the policyholder. As insurance rating software goes, it occupies the commercial slot most personal-lines-first agencies are missing.

Features #

Carrier connectivity #

Directory sources report roughly 30-plus carrier partners connected via API — names cited include Acuity, CNA, Chubb, Hanover, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, Nationwide, and State Auto. Treat "~31 carriers" as a directory-reported figure rather than an audited count. Carrier availability varies by state; per directory reporting Tarmika covers all states except Hawaii and Alaska. A commercial panel is naturally narrower than a personal-lines one, so the carrier list matters more here — check that your key small-commercial markets are on it, because the value of the rater is exactly the breadth of carriers it can shop a risk to.

Real-time rating #

The core is real-time, single-entry commercial comparative rating with quote-and-bind capability. Tarmika adds commercial-specific intelligence on top: it surfaces market appetite so you can see which carriers actually want a given class before you quote, asks dynamic underwriting questions that adjust to the risk, and maps NAICS class codes across its 20,000-plus business classes. That appetite-checking is a commercial-lines feature with no real personal-lines equivalent, and it directly protects the placement — you shop the risk to carriers that will write it rather than chasing declines.

Bridge-to-carrier #

The agency-facing rater is literally named Bridge, and quote-and-bind lets a comparative quote move toward bound business inside the workflow — the agent takes the client's risk, shops it across carriers, and binds the winning quote without leaving the tool. Tarmika also generates ACORD forms as part of the commercial quoting process, so the paperwork side of small-commercial submission is handled rather than left to a separate step. The companion Tunnel product extends the same rating engine into embedded-insurance experiences.

Prefill #

Single-entry commercial rating means capturing the business risk once — class, exposures, underwriting answers — so it feeds every carrier quote rather than being re-entered per carrier. Combined with dynamic underwriting questions and NAICS/class-code mapping, the goal is to build the commercial application accurately one time. We are not attributing a specific third-party prefill service here beyond that single-entry design, which is the reliable, grounded description.

AMS integration #

Tarmika connects via API to a range of management systems and platforms, so a quote doesn't dead-end in the rater: Applied Epic, EZLynx, Better Agency, AgencyZoom, and Neon are named integrations, with deeper ties into Applied products (Epic, EZLynx, AskKodiak) following the 2022 acquisition. In practice that means a risk quoted in Tarmika can flow back into the AMS as an account and policy record rather than being re-keyed — the classic double-entry the whole rater is meant to kill. For an agency already running EZLynx or Applied Epic for personal lines, Tarmika is the piece that adds commercial rating to the same stack, and its integration with EZLynx and Applied Epic is the tightest since they share an owner. Tarmika's commercial panel is also being folded into Applied's Ivans distribution platform.

Pricing #

Tarmika is quote-only — no public price is disclosed. It is sold per-agency; you request a demo for a number.

What your quote looks like depends on user count and how you use it. The relevant cost framing for most agencies is additive: Tarmika is usually the commercial rater you add alongside a personal-lines rater and a management system, not a replacement for either. Ask directly about any setup fee so the number is comparable to the rest of your stack.

Who It's For (and Who It Isn't) #

Tarmika fits an independent agency that writes small commercial — BOP, general liability, workers' comp, commercial auto, package, and cyber — and wants single-entry comparative quoting instead of re-keying the same business into carrier portals. It is an especially strong add-on for agencies already on EZLynx or Applied Epic, where the shared-owner integration is tightest and quotes flow back into the AMS most cleanly, and for personal-lines-first shops trying to grow a commercial book — and the revenue that comes with it — without the manual quoting drag.

It is a weaker fit for a purely personal-lines agency — if you only write auto and home, a personal-lines rater like EZLynx or PL Rating covers you and Tarmika is unnecessary. It is also a weaker fit for agencies whose core commercial markets are not on Tarmika's ~30-carrier panel (verify your key carriers first), and for agencies in Hawaii or Alaska, which per directory reporting are outside its coverage. As with every rater here, quote-only pricing means no sticker to compare without a demo.

Is It Legit and Worth It? #

Tarmika is legitimate and, for what it does, fairly distinctive. Founded in 2018 by people who came out of agencies and carriers, it built a genuinely useful small-commercial rater — the appetite visibility, dynamic underwriting questions, and 20,000-plus business classes address the specific reasons commercial quoting is slower and messier than personal lines. Applied's 2022 acquisition gives it staying power and tight integration into the largest agency-software ecosystem, and for a personal-lines-first agency it fills the one rating gap those big personal-lines platforms leave open.

The honest caveats are commercial-lines realities plus ecosystem context. The carrier panel is around 30 — deep enough to be useful, but you must confirm your key small-commercial markets are on it, and coverage excludes Hawaii and Alaska per directory reporting. The carrier count and integration details cited here are directory-reported, so verify specifics for your state and lines. And because Applied now owns it, the same ecosystem considerations that apply to EZLynx and Applied Epic — contracts and the broader Applied relationship — apply to Tarmika too. For an agency serious about growing small commercial, though, it is one of the few raters purpose-built for that job.

Alternatives #

• Semsee — the other commercial-lines comparative rater; the closest direct alternative for small-business quoting.
• Bold Penguin — a commercial-lines quoting and exchange platform for small commercial.
• EZLynx — Applied's personal-lines rater to pair with Tarmika on the personal side of the book.
• Applied Epic — the Applied management system Tarmika integrates with most tightly.

See the full comparative insurance rater category for the complete comparison.

Login & Support #

Agents access Tarmika at https://www.tarmika.com/, and acquisition and product information sits at https://www.tarmika.com/applied-systems/. Because Tarmika is now an Applied Systems product, agencies deeply integrated with Applied Epic or EZLynx may also route support through their Applied account channels.