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Christchurch Earthquake Effects on Ferret Customer - FMR Risk

October 22, 2012

Author: Andrew Storm

The February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake proved to be New Zealand’s deadliest peacetime disaster. Ferret Software interviewed insurance broker customer, FMR Risk about the effects of the Earthquakes on their business, and the role of Ferret Document Management Software.

Q: How was Ferret Document Management Software used prior to the earthquake?

A: Ferret Software was being used by most broker based staff to electronically record all correspondence between us and the clients which includes all physical files, e-mails and anything else.

Q: What happened when the Earthquake hit?

A: From the moment the earthquake hit, no brokers were allowed back in the building for any work purpose. It was many months before anyone was allowed in for any type of recovery. Business continued as per usual as all our server systems (including Ferret Software) were housed off site in an earthquake proof data-centre. Those that could connect from home did so and continued to serve their clients.

Q: What role did Ferret Software play when recovering from the earthquake?

A: For those brokers using Ferret it was business as usual. Not being at their actual desks 9 floors up in town was irrelevant; all the information (documents and correspondence) they needed to complete their jobs and serve our clients was already at their fingertips. I’m sure it surprised some of our clients that we were able to continue to trade as soon after the event as we did with all relevant information at hand.

Q: What would some of the issues have been if you didn’t have Ferret Software?

A: From an IT perspective, we would have had to rely heavily on restoring archived emails; most client data was stored in our client database system however any other correspondence would have been lost. Having Ferret in place meant the only sleepless nights were due to earthquakes and not worrying about files.

Q: Overall what is the benefit of Ferret in the event of an earthquake?

A: It’s not just restricted to earthquakes but any time a staff member needs to work from out of the office, either at home, in another office, or in another country, as long as they can connect to the network, Ferret and all the documents they’ve saved into it are right at their fingertips.

Mark O’Donnell, Crombie Lockwood NZ Limited (formerly FMR Risk)

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