Case Study: Penn Mutual achieves 40% connectivity cost savings and a faster, more secure network across 42 sites with Cisco Meraki

Driving impressive cost savings with new solution across 42 financial services sites

Penn Mutual, a mutual life insurance company with 42 branches and more than 1,800 associates, was struggling with latency, rising costs, and limited network visibility from a traditional hub-and-spoke T1 VPN managed by a telecom carrier. With only three network administrators, Penn Mutual needed a secure, easy-to-manage solution that supported split-tunnel VPN, wireless access at previously wired-only field offices, and strong access controls. They chose Cisco Meraki (Security & SD‑WAN, Switching, Wireless — MX, MS, MR and the cloud dashboard).

Cisco Meraki deployed MX security appliances with auto-provisioning site-to-site VPN, MS switches, MR access points and a centralized Meraki dashboard with zero-touch provisioning and cloned configurations so the small IT team could manage all 42 sites. The rollout moved branches from expensive T1 hub-and-spoke links to 50 Mbps DSL where available, improved security with Layer 7 visibility, VLAN/SSID segmentation and traffic shaping, and delivered major cost savings — projected 3‑year WAN spend fell from $2,193,750 to $1,334,893 (about 40% savings) — while increasing network speed, mobility and operational simplicity.

Penn Mutual

Andrew McInerney

Data Network and Voice Manager