Members of the Flathead Valley business community recently got a look inside a Kalispell company that deals exclusively in crisis situations.

National Flood Services is headquartered in a massive building off U.S. 2 on the western edge of Kalispell.

During a recent tour set up by Montana West Economic Development. most attendees were looking to simply find out what goes on inside the pinwheel-shaped building north of Fatt Boy’s Sports Bar, where 350 people work for the biggest flood insurance company in the United States.

The reason local residents might not know much about National Flood Services seems pretty clear to Chief Executive Officer Keith Brown.

“We employ people here, but don’t do very much business here,” Brown said.

The office takes in about 8,000 calls a day, handles about 3 million policies a year and receives about $2 billion in premiums, Brown said.

Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina were huge events for the company.

“Just for Sandy, within two weeks we had brought in over 100 temporary workers,” said Gregg Hultquist, executive vice president at National Flood Services. “Some of them were here for two months, others became employed full time.”

National Flood Services operates as the processor for major insurance companies such as Nationwide, State Farm and Allstate. That’s where those 8,000 calls come from, managing millions of premiums and claims from across the country through several large-scale insurance companies.

“We are their flood department,” Brown said.

National Flood Services has been expanding for years, most recently acquiring CSC Flood in 2013; Brown called it “two big fish coming together.” But Brown also announced on the tour that National Flood Services was acquired by AON a year and a half ago, a global risk management and insurance provider.

“For us it’s a very good thing,” Brown said. “It added an immense amount of capability we needed.”

Brown said being acquired by AON allows National Flood Services to pursue its objective of expanding the market. Brown said the number of homeowners with flood insurance is low. While about 5 to 10 percent of homeowners are currently insured for floods, he said that number should be closer to 15 to 20 percent.

“Flood insurance is for a peril people don’t think they need,” he said.

While National Flood Services continues its reach into the market, it’s taking advantage of new employment methods such as telecommuting. Last year, the flood insurance leader closed down its Florida office and its 50 employees began doing their jobs from home.

“We’re still down there, we’re just cutting the cost of owning a building,” Brown said.

Hultquist said telecommuting is one way National Flood Services hopes to expand in the next couple of years as it tries to expand coverage from 5 million to about 12 million homeowners.

“We’ll do what we have to to find remote workers,” Hultquist said. “We do that through folks that have been here for a while internally and when they’re confident enough to go out on their own, then we’ll bring some new people in.”

Hultquist said flood and hurricane season usually starts around June 1, so National Flood Services will soon be ramping up to prepare for the summer ahead.

“We have models that we start very early,” he said. “We already have projections for the whole year.”

As June 1 approaches, Hultquist said the company will begin hiring people from temporary work agencies to meet the tide.

For more information on National Flood Services, visit www.nationalfloodservices.com.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.