Catastrophic Recovery - Insurance for Insurance

Warner Robins, GA, July 27, 2005 --(PR.com)-- In many instances, risk and liability, when it requires introspection are overlooked. If insurance is your business you’re most likely an expert at recognizing liability and prescribing the appropriate protection, but can you focus your skills inward, on your own company’s liability? This is the question IDMI has often posed to its customers and the Insurance industry as a whole. A catastrophic occurrence resulting in some or total loss of business operations, which some of IDMI’s customers experienced during the hurricane season of 2004, will shed light on the answer to this question. Many insurance companies discover the hard way the industry’s soft underbelly, its unprotected data, networks, and computers.

While being hit by multiple hurricanes in 2004, Florida based insurance company’s, whose concerns were already amplified from the losses being incurred by those they insure, also had to focus their attention on maintaining operations and precious data. As the first hurricane of the season ripped through the Florida coast and continued inland, disabling everything in its path, the question was raised, how long until we are up and running again? The answer, for IDMI’s customers who had Catastrophic Recovery protection, was 24 hours.

Catastrophic Recovery consists of maintaining, not only a current copy of the company’s data off-site, but also a copy of the system that uses the data. This method combined with a web based, client-server infrastructure allows a company to have many options to regain operational status after a catastrophic occurrence. “We’ve had several instances over the past few years where we’ve needed to implement a Catastrophic Recovery process quickly to handle the customer’s urgent need,” said Gary Martin, President and CEO of IDMI. “In one situation, we took backup copies of a customer’s data and their Policy Tracking System or PTS, transferred them to new servers, and had the customer’s system back up and running the same day. When the emergency passed, their original servers were restored,” he explained. Other Catastrophic Recovery options IDMI has implemented over the years include allowing a company to connect remotely to their backed up PTS and data, as well as, uploading a backed up PTS and its data to new servers already at the customer’s location. “Having options in a crisis gives our customers, as well as our support staff, peace of mind,” said Gary.

It is difficult to see the full benefits of Catastrophic Recovery at first look, probably because it requires significant imagination to see your company in a situation where it may be needed. But insurers, familiar with the concept, recognize the need when they are asked to consider it. “Given the opportunity, insurers can recognize a good insurance policy when they see one, especially when it is for their own protection,” explained Michael Marchant, National Sales Manager for IDMI. “Catastrophic Recovery is an afterthought when they consider purchasing a PTS to manage their business, but they immediately recognize the need,” he said. 

About IDMI
Founded in 1996, IDMI began with a fresh, forward looking approach to meeting its customer’s needs. Their focus is the Insurance industry where they utilize Internet technology to manage and access large informational databases and create flexible user intuitive systems. Over the last decade IDMI has quietly become the most successful developer of Insurance management systems by delivering the highest quality along with the fastest and most successful implementation strategy in the industry. Policy Tracking System or PTS is a real-time Internet ready management system for the Insurance industry. An all-in-one system managing information from policy administration and reporting functions to agency point of sale.

For additional information, visit www.idminc.com.

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