Insurance · head to head
Five Sigma vs Ivans
Five Sigma
Insurance
Cloud claims management with decision support aimed at insurers who cannot fund a full core programme
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
Ivans
Insurance
Carrier to agency data exchange infrastructure that sits under most US insurance agency management systems
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Five Sigma the reference base is small compared with established claims vendors, so procurement and audit committees will ask for viability assurances you cannot fully answer.; Ivans applied Systems owns both Ivans and competing agency management systems, so the neutral infrastructure that every AMS depends on is controlled by one of the AMS vendors, a conflict that rival vendors have complained about for years.
- They diverge on capability: Five Sigma covers Claim file management, Ivans covers Ivans Download.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Five Sigma and Ivans actually diverge.
| Attribute | Five Sigma | Ivans |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web, API | Web |
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Insurance).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Five Sigma
- Claim file management
- Automation rules
- Adjuster decision support
- Vendor and litigation management
- Configurable lines
- Reporting and data export
Only in Ivans
- Ivans Download
- Ivans Exchange
- Ivans Distribution
- Market Appetite
- Download analytics for carriers
- Commission download
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Five Sigma
- A third-party administrator replacing a homegrown claims system without a multi-year programmenot Ivans
- An MGA taking claims handling in house from a delegated authority arrangementnot Ivans
- A mid-sized carrier that needs a modern claims system but cannot fund a core suite replacementnot Ivans
- A programme business that must report claims data to capacity providers in a consistent formatnot Ivans
Ivans
- An agency evaluating a new management system that needs to confirm, carrier by carrier and line by line, which data will actually download before it signsnot Five Sigma
- A carrier launching a new line that wants agency systems to receive policy data automatically rather than by rekeying from a portalnot Five Sigma
- An MGA that wants its book visible to retail agencies in the same download flow as admitted carriersnot Five Sigma
- An agency operations lead auditing why commission reconciliation keeps failing, which usually turns out to be a missing or misconfigured download connectionnot Five Sigma
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Five Sigma
- The reference base is small compared with established claims vendors, so procurement and audit committees will ask for viability assurances you cannot fully answer.
- Automation benefits depend entirely on your claim mix, and a book with high-complexity liability claims sees far less handling time reduction than a high-volume property book.
- There is almost no third-party integrator market, so implementation, configuration and later changes route through the vendor and its capacity becomes your constraint.
- Deep integration with legacy policy systems is your responsibility, and claims platforms are only as useful as the policy and coverage data flowing into them.
- Regulatory reporting for many United States states is not as complete out of the box as it is on platforms that have served American carriers for decades, so expect some reporting build.
Ivans
- Applied Systems owns both Ivans and competing agency management systems, so the neutral infrastructure that every AMS depends on is controlled by one of the AMS vendors, a conflict that rival vendors have complained about for years.
- Download coverage is decided by carriers, not by Ivans or your AMS, so a carrier that does not publish a line simply does not download it and no amount of configuration in your system will fix it.
- Eligibility requires that you are appointed and writing the line in that state, meaning newly appointed agencies wait on carrier-side setup with little visibility into where the request sits.
- Data quality varies sharply by carrier, and agencies routinely find that some carriers send incomplete or oddly mapped policy data that then has to be cleaned inside the AMS, undermining the point of automating it.
- Pricing is opaque and largely invisible to agencies because it is bundled into AMS and carrier agreements, which makes it impossible to judge what the network actually costs your business or to negotiate it.
Pricing, plan by plan
Five Sigma
On request- Five Sigma Claims$undefined/year
- Claims administration
- Automation and decision support
- Configurable lines of business
Ivans
On request- Ivans$undefined/year
- Ivans Exchange is provided to agencies at no additional charge, with a possible fee for Citizens of Florida business
- Carrier and MGA participation, Ivans Distribution and appetite products are quoted
- Pricing is generally embedded in the agency management system or carrier agreement rather than billed separately to the agency
Which should you pick?
Choose Five Sigma if
- You need claim file management.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want automation rules.
Questions people ask
- Is Five Sigma or Ivans better?
- Neither clearly leads. Five Sigma starts at On request and Ivans at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Five Sigma or Ivans?
- Five Sigma starts at On request and Ivans at On request.
- Does Five Sigma or Ivans run on more platforms?
- Five Sigma runs on Web, API. Ivans runs on Web.
- What is Five Sigma best used for?
- Five Sigma is most often used for a third-party administrator replacing a homegrown claims system without a multi-year programme, an mga taking claims handling in house from a delegated authority arrangement, a mid-sized carrier that needs a modern claims system but cannot fund a core suite replacement, a programme business that must report claims data to capacity providers in a consistent format. Of those, a third-party administrator replacing a homegrown claims system without a multi-year programme and an mga taking claims handling in house from a delegated authority arrangement are not what Ivans is typically brought in for.
- What can Five Sigma do that Ivans cannot?
- Five Sigma covers Claim file management, Automation rules, Adjuster decision support, Vendor and litigation management. Ivans covers Ivans Download, Ivans Exchange, Ivans Distribution, Market Appetite.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Five Sigma: Who is the typical buyer?
Third-party administrators, MGAs and small to mid-sized carriers that need a real claims system without a core suite budget.
Ivans: Do agencies pay for Ivans?
Ivans Exchange is provided to agencies at no additional cost, with a noted exception for business written with Citizens of Florida. The economics sit with carriers and with the agency management system vendors.
Five Sigma: How does it compare with Guidewire ClaimCenter?
ClaimCenter has far more depth, references and integrator support, and costs correspondingly more with a longer implementation. Five Sigma competes on time to live.
Ivans: Why is a carrier not downloading?
Almost always eligibility or carrier-side publication: you must be appointed and writing that line in that state, and the carrier must publish that line for download. Check the connection status in Ivans Exchange first.
Five Sigma: What should we test in a pilot?
Adjuster handling time on your own claim mix. The commercial case rests on that measurement, not on the feature list.
Ivans: Is Ivans owned by Applied Systems?
Yes. That matters because Applied also sells Applied Epic and EZLynx, so a competing AMS depends on infrastructure run by a competitor.
Ivans: Can you switch AMS and keep your downloads?
Connections have to be re-pointed to the new system, which is a per-carrier request through Ivans Exchange and is a common source of migration delay.
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