Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast on Oct. 30, 2012 and for days lashed the region with high winds and rain. From that day through November 5, Allstate Corp., the nation’s largest publicly traded personal lines insurer, received almost 14,000 claims submissions online and through mobile claims applications, representing a 116-percent increase compared to a non-catastrophe week. By integrating telephony, text messaging, e-mail, video conferencing, Internet access, as well as photo and video capabilities, into a single personal technology, mobile devices have transformed the ways people communicate, entertain themselves, shop and transact business.