USAgencies is a nonstandard auto insurer, so operating in a nonstandard manner shouldn't be unexpected. Licensed to insure motorists in Illinois, Alabama, and Louisiana, the carrier fashions itself as a call center that happens to sell insurance, according to Shawn Gregory, systems services manager. "We are very focused on making sure we give our clients quick assistance to any need they may have," he says.

But rather than build a centralized call center, the carrier opted for a distributed operation. "We wanted a presence in a lot of areas," Gregory states. The carrier operates 93 branch offices with a VoIP system connected to every representative's desk. The majority of call center personnel is comprised of licensed agents. If an agent is licensed in all three of the carrier's states and can speak Spanish and English, that agent can be in almost every queue USAgencies has, he explains, adding, those who are not licensed have limited access until they are licensed.

USAgencies also has a server in every office, so with about 100 servers throughout the company, storage problems were bound to pop up. The carrier felt it needed a central storage solution. "We started consolidating data to a SAN [storage area network], and we invested in a NAS [network attached storage], as well," says Gregory. "We went to a NAS to offload all the file-sharing services. We wanted something more specialized to better handle the workload. We knew we needed something stable and robust."