WS_FTP File Transfer

Transamerica Flood Uses Ipswitch’s WS_FTP Server To Buoy Mortgage Flood Certification Program

As part of a Fortune 500 company in the swift-moving waters of real estate, Transamerica Flood Hazard Certification (TFHC®), headquartered in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ and serving a domestic customer base, is no stranger to utilizing leading-edge technology to stay on top of the latest industry wave. Within this $5.7 billion-a-year business is its program to serve lenders participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Federal law requires all mortgaged properties in federally designated flood hazard areas to carry flood insurance — and that all flood hazard determinations made by third-party vendors and used by lenders carry a guarantee such as TFHC provides.

To position itself as the technically premier provider of flood hazard certifications among the fewer than 140 companies authorized to do so, TFHC committed to redesign its customer-service system, moving from DOS-based retrieval to SQL Server/Windows technology. In that process, TFHC beta tested, then adopted Ipswitch’s WS_FTP Server 1.0 — seeking to better serve mortgage broker institutions that use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to relay order requests.

TFHCTT determines a property’s flood status, communicates either directly via a "network-to-network" connection to the broker’s loan-production software to automate determinations or delivers flood hazard certifications by FTP.

While others still can use an NT-based bulletin board to post documents for retrieval, these FTP-armed customers can use TFHC’s TT extranet for swift shuttling of documentation while draining minimum bandwidth, as well as providing them the freedom to develop their own order processing systems.

Used with Ipswitch’s WS_FTP Pro client on the customer end, the system guarantees security and streamlines the process (even enabling convenient instant re-starts for failed sessions). TFHC is making flood hazard certification a "no-brainer" for participants with more pressing matters on their minds.