PhotoFax Inc. is a nationally recognized leader in surveillance, compliance, and investigative services. PhotoFax’s highly reliable solutions create a formidable first line of defense in workers’ compensation, liability, and long term disability claims. Since 1988, PhotoFax has provided private investigation services throughout the continental United States to insurance carriers, third-party administrators, and large self-insured companies that detect insurance fraud through the use of video surveillance and special investigations.

PhotoFax was already using a phone-based GPS application to locate investigators and verify proof of services. However, there were several challenges with the phone-based GPS solutions, including: complete reliance on the driver to turn the phone on and launch the GPS application, too easy for the GPS application to be deleted off the phone and finally, phone batteries draining too fast when GPS tracking was on. Even when the ‘stars were aligned,’ the phone GPS application calculated mileage using ‘as the crow flies’ techniques between two GPS points which led to inaccurate mileage readings. John Todaro, in charge of operations and HR at PhotoFax, was looking for a solution that could provide accurate information for both GPS location and mileage. Mileage needed to be accurate to within 0.5% for handling gas reimbursement on company-driven trucks.

He was also looking for a way to easily port the GPS unit to different vehicles as needed. In addition, Todaro wanted to move forward with a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy so that employees could bring their own smartphones to work, which would bring down the corporate telecommunication cost significantly.

Todaro’s research led to the Azuga G2 solution. Implementing Azuga G2 quickly allowed PhotoFax to locate drivers and verify proof-of-visit. Azuga G2 has also become a powerful tool for PhotoFax to demonstrate to their insurance customers the surveillance locations visited by PhotoFax investigators and the duration of each visit. Fuel-wasting activities such as idling, speeding and sudden starts are now monitored through system alerts and can be addressed in real time. PhotoFax’s fuel re-imbursement has now become super-accurate since Azuga G2 reads data directly off the engine computer every second.

“I’ve tried them all: hard-to-install ‘Black Box’ GPS systems, battery-powered trackers and phone-based GPS applications. The hassle wasn’t worth it,” Todaro said. “Azuga G2 had the best price-performance value and paid for itself in the first month of use.”