State Farm Insurance can bring nodes up in disaster-torn areas in a matter of hours.
When you have a backbone network that spans the country, supporting three giant corporate facilities, 35 operations centers, almost 500 claims offices and some 17,000 agent offices, you’d think you’d have your bases covered.
But natural disasters don’t play by any rules, and for State Farm Insurance, the nation’s largest home and auto insurance company, that means it is critical to be able to quickly extend the network to support hard-hit areas.
That job falls to Kevin Cox, manager of the company’s Systems Catastrophe Services group. His 22-person team – consisting of catastrophe support specialists dotted throughout the country – is responsible for getting equipment into the field after a disaster and bringing up the network links that make it possible to speed claims processing.
The company, which has some 76,000 employees – more than 9,000 in IT alone -prides itself on being responsive. Responding fast after disaster strikes benefits policyholders, increases brand loyalty and is a key selling point for State Farm agents.
WAN cans
The Systems Catastrophe Services group has two primary types of resources it uses to respond to disasters: network kits that can be delivered by courier overnight, and trucks that are essentially rolling claims offices.
A kit – what the team calls a WAN in a can – is a trunk-size box that has a small equipment rack inside. The front and back unbuckle and pop off to reveal a Cisco PIX firewall, a Cisco Catalyst 2950 switch, an HP print server (in many but not all cans), and the appropriate interface for the type of WAN link to be used – dial up, T-1 or very small aperture terminal.
“We have enough kits to support 150 total sites at any one time,” Cox says. “That’s our [service-level agreement] with the State Farm Catastrophe Services group.” There are 90 dial-up kits (40 outfitted with print server appliances), 30 for T-1 links and 33 for use with VSATs.
When catastrophe strikes, the company estimates the extent of the damage and the number of likely claims, and then responds in kind. The goal is to set up shop as close as possible to the action, and that often means renting temporary office space for claims representatives and shipping out the kits and other gear necessary to bring the office online.
The network connection of choice is T-1, but often the lead time is too great or the telco facilities have been damaged by the catastrophe, as was the case last year in hurricane-ravaged Florida. In those cases VSAT dishes are set up to link the temporary offices back to State Farm data centers.
CRVs AND MCFs
Two of the four emergency trucks State Farm can dispatch have VSAT antennas mounted right on the roof.
These Catastrophe Response Vehicles (CRV) – one is 36 feet long and the other is 23 feet – can be deployed directly into afflicted neighborhoods and are essentially self-contained offices, Cox says.
The smaller of the two, for example, is outfitted with generators, UPS, fax machines, printers and desk space for four with Ethernet jacks, say nothing of a TV, refrigerator, microwave and a bathroom.
When this CRV arrives on the scene, pushing a single button will raise the 3-foot-long VSAT antenna on the roof. It uses GPS to figure out where it is and where to point itself to acquire the appropriate satellite signal.
The 512K bit/sec Ku-band link supports data traffic, VoIP to the corporate backbone, DirecTV for Weather Channel access and video for interactive distance learning.
While VoIP over satellite has the usual satellite delay, the sound quality is good, he says. What’s more, it makes it possible for State Farm to route 1-800-CLAIMS calls directly to the truck, if need be.
The two CRVs complement two similarly outfitted but larger semi-truck trailers that State Farm calls Mobile Catastrophe Facilities (MCF). The 53-foot-long MCF trailers, which expand like large recreational vehicles, can handle four to five teams of claim representatives – up to 50 people – with some situated inside and others working outside with customers.
While the CRVs can be driven right into neighborhoods, the MCFs are designed to service larger areas. “We get permission to park an MCF in a Wal-Mart or Home Depot parking lot, pop it open and start processing claims,” Cox says. “We can even set up a drive-through for cars.” The MCFs can be tied to the State Farm network via VSAT or T-1.
After a Force 5 tornado with winds greater than 300 mph ripped through La Plata, Md., in 2002, State Farm deployed an MCF, set up shop in the decimated area and was processing claims within 48 hours, Cox says.
Looking down the road, Cox says an emerging satellite technology might let State Farm go directly to a customer’s door. So-called broadband global-area network technology might make it possible for a claims representative to put a notebook-size antenna on top of his car to establish a 432K bit/sec link to State Farm and then go into a customer’s house and use a wireless link to tie back to the antenna.
