Cisco 1700 Series Modular Access Routers

Toro Assicurazioni SpA, known as the Group Toro, is a leading insurance group with a 170-year history in Italy. Eighty percent of its business is underwriting property and casualty insurance, and 20 percent is life insurance. The company's broad range of insurance products and services is supplied to 2.6 million families, individuals, professional workers, and small- to medium-sized businesses through a network of 1250 agencies. In addition to its Turin headquarters and agency network, Toro Group maintains offices in Rome and Genoa, as well as 50 claims offices throughout Italy.

In the past, agencies had minimal connection to corporate headquarters, and several agencies in remote locations relied solely on PCs and local applications. When new policies were written, they were sent to headquarters for underwriting and processing. Processing demanded the attention of numerous employees and many time-consuming steps because a range of different back-office information systems did not automatically share data.

In the insurance industry, the most successful companies are those with the best agencies. Therefore, 90 percent of Group Toro's information services are designed to help its agents serve clients and sell more successfully. With aggressive goals to increase its client base, Group Toro wanted to create the best possible environment for its agents. This goal required increasing the range of services provided to agents and improving information quality. For example, Group Toro planned to create a portal for agents, enabling them to quickly access the information that they need over the Web. A new claims status application would deliver up-to-the-minute status of any claim, enabling agents to quickly answer client questions. Providing free voice calls from any agency to headquarters would reduce agencies' costs and improve agents' satisfaction.

To improve processing efficiency and simplify overall management, Group Toro planned to create portals for employees and customers, allowing any authorized user to quickly find information online. By providing more self-service options, Group Toro estimated that it could reduce costs for back-office processes by up to 35 percent.

Group Toro's strategy for achieving these goals was to migrate from a local, batch-processing approach to a centralized, business-ready data center that delivers highly responsive applications, enables real-time processes, and provides enterprisewide visibility into operations for all of its agencies, which would now be connected over a WAN. To implement its strategy, Group Toro chose a Cisco® Transforming Insurance solution that included Cisco routing and switching products.

Group Toro began by standardizing back-office systems and redesigning its business applications to make them easily accessible over the Web. These changes significantly simplified information sharing, which streamlined critical business processes. The company also migrated its data center to become a business-ready data center, where eventually applications would be centralized for easy access by any agent, in any location. Based on Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Series Switches, the data center network provides the highest levels of availability, superior operating efficiency, and support for converged applications.

"Changing the technology infrastructure was essential to support our mission and applications," says Mr. Paolo Falletti, chief information officer for Group Toro. "With a wealth of new Web-based services for our agents, we must be able to deliver them reliably. This is why we chose a highly resilient network from Cisco and built in critical intrusion detection, firewall, and monitoring services."

A third project involved connecting all 1250 agencies over a carrier-managed Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) WAN service and deploying new Cisco Integrated Services Routers in each agency. Group Toro took advantage of the Cisco Technology Migration program to replace its existing routers with new Cisco 1841 and 801 Integrated Services Routers that support concurrent data, security, and voice services.

"We chose the Cisco Integrated Services Routers for their high performance and resiliency," says Falletti. "In addition, we were able to cost-effectively increase redundancy for each agency with a second, back-up connection."

The new Cisco Transforming Insurance solution has helped Group Toro meet its goals of increasing efficiency, improving processes, and delivering new agent services. Agents can now easily access information, view up-to-the-minute claims status, and submit policies for underwriting online using a browser interface. Client service is enhanced because agents can respond quickly and definitively to questions and requests.

"We have achieved our goals to date because our infrastructure performance is excellent," says Falletti. "Our applications achieved the performance targets that we set, and we are well-positioned to complete centralizing all applications by late 2007. At the same time, we achieved our cost savings goals while delivering a wealth of new applications to our agencies."

By consolidating its WAN through one carrier, Group Toro significantly reduced the time and resources required for managing multiple carrier relationships and achieved new network management efficiency. Group Toro IT personnel are freed to focus on the company's internal network and IT projects, while the carrier manages all WAN connectivity issues.

Group Toro plans to complete the entire consolidation and application centralization project by the end of 2007. With its deployment of versatile Cisco Integrated Services Routers, a number of future applications are possible, such as network-based security, voice, and videoconferencing.

Group Toro's data center deployed Cisco Catalyst 6513 Switches with Firewall Services Module, Intrusion Detection (IDS) Module and Network Analysis Module (NAM), enabling it to embed services directly in its core infrastructure. The primary purpose of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Firewall Services Module is to protect the corporate data VLAN, which includes all application traffic and data. The Cisco IDS provides intrusion detection capabilities for the core data center network, while the Cisco NAM is used for troubleshooting.

Three aggregation points at the carrier's edge use redundant Cisco 7204VXR Routers for managing all connections and aggregating ADSL Permanent Virtual Circuits for traffic coming from the 1250 agencies across Italy. Cisco 7204VXR Routers provide WAN services aggregation with the industry's widest range of connectivity options, high scalability, and support for integrated services, such as advanced quality of service (QoS) and security.

When the deployment is complete, each agency will receive a Cisco 1841 Integrated Services Router that provides the primary broadband ADSL connection to MPLS WAN service and a Cisco 801 Integrated Services Router that provides a connection to an ISDN backup link. Cisco 1700 Series Routers were deployed at regional branch offices. Group Toro expects to use QoS features of the Cisco Integrated Services Routers in the future for applications such as videoconferencing.

To learn more about Cisco routing solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/routing

To learn more about Cisco switching solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/switching

To learn more about Cisco security solutions, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/security

To learn more about Group Toro Assicurarioni, visit: http://www.toroassicurazioni.it

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