BLOOMINGTON - Mike Fernandez stepped into a public relations mess of Fortune 500 proportions.

Less than a year before he became vice president of communications and external relations at State Farm Insurance Cos., Hurricane Katrina forced people from their homes without food or money.

Politicians and prosecutors questioned the insurer's handling of hurricane claims along the Gulf Coast, even as State Farm agents poured in to help.

Now, more than one year later, State Farm policyholders still dispute claims in court and want insurance payments for their washed-out homes.

"This went beyond the magnitude of the mere confines of insurance," said James Valverde, vice president of economics and risk management for the Insurance Information Institute in New York. "This was a humanitarian endeavor."

While events were isolated to the Gulf Coast, consumers around the country now wonder how their insurer will treat them after a disaster, said Jeffrey Courtright, a communication and public relations professor at Illinois State University.

To ease that doubt, "it's going to take more than good service. It's going to take someone to communicate that good service," Courtright said.

That's the charge placed on Fernandez, who is now the chief spokesman for the No. 22 company on the Fortune 500 list.

He didn't replace anybody. State Farm created the position.

The company always has had a public-relations staff but not to this extent. More than 100 people now work in State Farm's communications department, said spokesman Fraser Engerman.

"We were reactive 10 years ago," Engerman said. "We're much more proactive in going out to tell our story now."

Vincent Trosino, State Farm's retiring vice president and chief operating officer, said the mass-media age forced the company's hand. With the Internet, consumers demand instant information. In turn, he said, State Farm thought it prudent to hire a vice president to streamline its message.

"I think we have more stories of significant success and satisfaction than there are people who've been unhappy with their situation," Trosino said during a recent interview on his retirement. "We knew we had to find someone from the outside with significant PR experience."

Five interesting facts

About: Mike Fernandez

Quote to live by: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place," George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and 1925 winner of Nobel Prize in Literature.

Most influential reading: "The Federalist Papers," colonial essays that Fernandez calls "the first successful PR campaign in America."

Professional philosophy: "No argument has ever been won by silence."

Honors: Named "PR All Star" for strategic communications by Inside PR magazine in 1999.

Background: Led public relations at three other Fortune 500 companies: U.S. West Communications, CIGNA, ConAgra Foods.