Agency principals Sara Sims and Gary Sims stand beside what remains of the historic building which prior to the fire on October 31, 2000, housed the J.S. Ward Agency, founded by Sara's grandfather.
Inset photos: The Artesia Daily Press chronicled the firefighters' battle with the blaze throughout the day. It took
13 hours, 10 fire trucks and some three million gallons of water to extinguish the stubborn fire.
A phone call at 3:30 a.m. is rarely a welcome event. And when the person on the other end is from the local fire department reporting that your agency is on fire, you know it's going to be a bad day. That's how Sara Sims' day began on October 31, 2000--with a call from the Artesia, New Mexico, fire department, informing her that the vintage building in which the family agency was located was ablaze. The fire would not be extinguished for another 13 hours, in spite of 10 fire trucks pouring some three million gallons of water on the blaze. When the last ember was finally doused, the 94-year old building that housed the J.S. Ward Agency, founded in 1925 by Sims' grandfather, was a heap of rubble.
"Our fire was all over the news around the state of New Mexico," Sims recalls. "It even made the Dallas morning news."
What didn't make the Dallas morning news was that in College Station, Texas, AMS representative Rene Titus was in touch with the agency, putting into motion the process that would enable the J.S. Ward Agency to access its client files and begin servicing clients again in just five working days.
Titus is the technical support supervisor for AMS for Windows (AfW), the agency management software product that the 12-person J.S. Ward Agency was using. She had been trying to get in touch with the agency in response to their call to Support the day before. They needed assistance in setting up eight new workstations that had just arrived. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact the agency, Titus finally got through to Linda Bartlett, head of the agency's personal lines department. It was then that she learned why she was having so much trouble contacting the agency. It was on fire. Calls were finally being redirected to Bartlett's home.
Cell phones kept agency staff in touch with clients, carriers and vendors in the days immediately following the fire, Sims recalls. And sound workflow procedures which include securing unfinished paperwork in a fireproof vault at the end of the workday kept hard copy client files safe from water and smoke damage.
With 12 years' experience in the technical support area, Titus says disasters can take many forms--floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes--and she's been involved in helping numerous agencies following such events. But, she cautions, it's also a disaster when the agency principal discovers that the bookkeeper who's been with the agency for 25 years is embezzling. "Natural disasters aren't the only disasters that agencies need to consider when creating a disaster recovery plan. You need to consider the man-made ones also."
In counseling the J.S. Ward Agency on its technology options, Titus pointed out it was hard to predict how long it would take to obtain and install a new server--seven to 10 days was average--which meant the agency would be "down" for that period of time and unable to service clients. And the fact that the agency was in temporary quarters until the construction of its permanent location was complete would have an impact on the warranty of the new server. Given these considerations, she decided to suggest AfW Online, which has been available since last spring. The Online product, she reasoned, would be the quickest way for the agency to be up and running again, and it would eliminate the server location warranty concern.
So Titus contacted Kathy Jo Casady, a Bothell, Washington-based inside sales representative for AfW, who contacted Sara Sims to discuss AfW Online as an option. As the product name suggests, AfW Online is available to agencies via the Internet. So instead of purchasing the system server and software licenses, AMS hosts AfW over the Internet and the agency accesses the program on a subscription basis. In terms of workflow, using the Online version of AfW frees the agency from having to manage database servers, system backups, software upgrades and server upgrades, leaving the system administration functions up to AMS.
When Casady contacted Sims the day after the fire, one of Casady's first questions was about the agency's Internet access. Just a month before, according to Sims, the agency had implemented wireless Internet access. With that high-speed connection, the groundwork was in place for AfW Online.
The Online version makes it simple for employees to access client information from home or while on the road, as long as an Internet connection is available. And, according to Casady, should disaster strike again, the agency wouldn't lose any data as it is always stored off site, and there would be no downtime. An Internet connection would make it possible for employees to use the system, even from home. Although the dial-up connections generally used in homes aren't ideal, the access would be available nonetheless.
Sims says she saw the AfW Online option as an ideal solution. And because the agency had been using the in-house version of AfW, there was essentially no training needed--just discussion of the security precautions and receipt of its log-ins and passwords.
Casady notes that the Online version of AfW is suitable for agencies of any size where AfW is a good fit. "Agencies currently using Online vary in size from a 2-user operation up to a 48-user shop."
Just two days after the fire, Chris Homer, supervisor of the data conversion department for AMS, in College Station, Texas, had received the J.S. Ward Agency's backup tapes, which Sims had overnighted to her. It was evident early on that a complete data recovery was unlikely as the backup from the day prior to the fire had been retrieved from the tape drive in the burning building by one of the firefighters. The rest of the backups, which had been stored at the agency location, were smoky and blackened, but usable.
"Too many times," Homer says, "agencies fail to consider their data when they're creating their disaster plan. They look at recovery in terms of the furniture, etc., and they forget about the actual data. Equipment and file cabinets can be replaced. Data cannot be replaced. In order of importance, it's people first, data second. Get the people out first and have one of them grab the backup on the way out!"
For agencies that have an onsite server, Rene Titus emphasizes, "your business is your backup. It doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have, it can be stolen, burned or rendered useless somehow. But as long as you have a usable backup, your vendor can provide you the programs, the software. Nobody can provide your data but you. Everything can be replaced but the data."
In the days following the fire, cell phones were keeping the J.S. Ward staff in touch with clients, carriers and vendors. As calls came into the agency, they were automatically forwarded to Linda Bartlett's home and she then forwarded them to the appropriate person's cell phone. And so it was by cell phone that Sara Sims learned from Chris Homer that most of the data on the backup tapes was usable. Only one day's work was lost.
Water and smoke didn't affect the hard copy client files, either. Sims credits an agency workflow procedure that requires everyone to clear his/her desk at the end of each day. "Any unfinished paperwork, phone messages, etc., goes into a fireproof vault." (The location that burned was formerly a post office. What subsequently was known as the J.S. Ward Insurance Building was a state and national historic landmark.) However, the archive files stored in the basement didn't fare as well. She says the seven years of policy records kept in cardboard storage boxes in the basement were totally destroyed. "Anything older than 1999 is gone. Of course the companies can help us reconstruct those policies if we need to. This really got us thinking hard about transactional filing."
Chris Homer also supervises the AfW implementation department, so her final involvement with the J.S. Ward Agency was to have Bonnie Belman, implementation coordinator, get the agency logged into the data center. The codes are unique to each agency and ensure that no other agency is able to access another agency's data. Once the data was loaded, the J.S. Ward Agency was back in business. It was November 7th, just five working days after the agency location had been destroyed. Sims recalls that by November 10th, all the statements were processed and the accounts current were reconciled.
Sims notes with a laugh that Artesia is about three hours away from any town that has a Circuit City so when it was time to replace the computers (again), she purchased them from Dell via the Internet. The printers on everyone's desk required a bit more shopping around, though; and with Albuquerque four hours away, and Lubbock and El Paso each three hours away, the shopping effort was quite time-consuming.
Word of the fire spread quickly, and true to the basic nature of insurance people, agencies from neighboring communities pitched in to help. And so did the carriers. One of the underwriters drove from Albuquerque to help with the cleanup effort. Other company representatives came to the agency's temporary location to load their software. "The companies have been really good," Sims says.
And so were the neighbors in Artesia, a town of some 10,000 residents. "Everyone in the office has a borrowed desk," Sims notes, the result of donated desks and office equipment from other area businesses. The agency is going to rebuild at its old site. The project is expected to take about a year.
Sims notes that the agency didn't have a formal disaster plan at the time of the fire. " 'It will never happen to us,' best describes why we didn't have a plan," she explains. By late November when we talked with Sims, she said things were still pretty chaotic but that she knew the agency needed to develop a disaster recovery plan. "We've learned a lot." *
In addition to her 12 years' experience in technical support, Rene Titus has also facilitated disaster recovery sessions at the AMS Users' Group annual conference. Chris Homer finds that she's providing more disaster recovery advice than she has in the past. Titus and Homer offer the following "big picture" suggestions to agencies as they create their disaster recovery plans. They note that there's no time to think once a disaster strikes. The thinking has to be done ahead of time and incorporated into a formal disaster recovery plan.
"Invite the input of key staff people and brainstorm," Titus advises. "If you take it seriously enough that you get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, you're on the right track."
"The principal can't think of everything," Homer notes. "And, what's important to the lead commercial lines CSR will be different from what's important to the person who runs your mailroom. So involve all the key players when designing the agency's disaster recovery plan."
* Take care of the people in the agency. Do what you can to keep them out of harm's way.
* Have a list of employee phone numbers so you can be sure their home situation is secure.
* Identify potential temporary locations.
* Have a backup server available.
* Store your backups off site.
Other "what if" considerations include:
* an employee has a heart attack at his/her desk...and dies
* there's a fire and the office has to be evacuated
* you discover your backup data is corrupt
And once you have your plan in place, the agency should continue to meet regularly, perhaps on a quarterly basis, to go over procedures. With employee turnover, new employees need to be brought up to speed on the disaster recovery plan.
For more information
AfW Online
Phone: (800) 444-4813
Web site: www.ams-services.com