Case Study: IAT Group achieves 4x agent and investigator productivity with Riverbed SteelHead WAN Optimization

Insurance Company’s Agents and Investigators Increase Productivity 4x with Steelhead WAN Optimization

IAT Group, a multi-company insurance organization with 18 U.S. offices and roughly 750–800 employees plus contractors, centralized its applications into several data centers but experienced poor performance for business‑critical systems—most notably Vertafore’s ImageRight. The chatty application performed slowly over the WAN, causing agents to spend 90–120 minutes writing a policy and slowing investigators and other staff who relied on Exchange, AS/400 and file transfers.

IAT deployed Riverbed SteelHead WAN optimization appliances in data centers and branches and licensed SteelHead Mobile for remote users. ImageRight traffic was compressed 80–99%, cutting policy‑writing time to about 20–30 minutes, speeding uploads and file copies from hours to minutes, and eliminating the need for branch bandwidth upgrades. The rollout improved overall productivity and paid for itself in roughly nine to ten months.

IAT Group

Ryan Smith

Network Engineer