Egertons Recovery Group saves £40,000 in insurance costs and improves safety by 141% with Samsara

“You can't manage what you can't see. With Samsara, if something is disconnected, we know instantly. When we need to look for something, it's there.”  Tracy Leese, Transport Manager, Egertons Recovery Ltd

Standout Benefits

• 141% improvement in safety scores over 9 months

• 73.5 hours per month saved in administrative tasks

• £40,000 saved from avoiding irrefutable insurance claims

• £5,700 monthly fuel waste identified and addressed

• 71% fleet growth (88 to 150 drivers) while improving safety

Critical system failures creating costly blind spots

Egertons Recovery Ltd is at the frontline of emergency vehicle recovery, with an extensive fleet of specialist vehicles that respond to breakdowns and accidents across the UK. The stakes are high—their teams often work in dangerous roadside conditions, and response time is critical when dealing with stranded motorists.

Before Samsara, the company faced problems with their telematics system failing at the most critical moments, creating expensive blind spots in their operations.

"We'd have an incident or complaint, and when we'd look for the footage, it wasn't recorded,” said Tracy Leese, Transport Manager at Egertons Recovery. “That leaves us hanging in the lurch when it comes to insurance claims.” 

The company was also struggling to effectively manage driver behavior, with no visibility into critical safety issues like mobile phone use, seatbelt compliance, and harsh braking events. With 360 drivers spread across the three companies—Egerton, Ransfield, and Egerton Fleet Services—the lack of consolidated visibility was hampering their ability to operate efficiently.

The search for a comprehensive solution

After a recommendation from their insurance partner Marsh, Egertons began a trial with Samsara in August 2024. The company deployed Samsara's Vehicle Gateways, AI Dash Cams, Asset Tracking, and Connected Workflows to gain real-time visibility into their fleet operations, capture critical footage for driver coaching, monitor high-value equipment, and digitise risk assessment forms.

Rather than setting predetermined benchmarks, Egertons took a data-driven approach to implementation. "We put Samsara in and flowed with it to see what we were getting back, how we could interpret that data, and then prioritise our main issues moving forward," said Leese. 

The context needed to increase fleet safety

Samsara's platform quickly identified the top safety concerns: mobile phone use, seatbelt non-compliance, and harsh braking. These behaviours were now visible and addressable for the first time.

When serious incidents occur, Egertons now takes a holistic coaching approach. In one case, a driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. "We sat down and showed him the footage—he couldn't even remember what happened," said Leese. "With Samsara I can look at everything—the build-up, his health, whether he did his daily checks—all of it plays a role."

This incident led to improved training processes across the business, including accident management procedures for drivers and better daily health assessments to prevent similar occurrences.

By sharing data with Marsh through an API integration, Egertons can also demonstrate their commitment to mitigating these risks. "We have regular meetings to discuss ongoing claims," said Leese. "We got the insurance renewal because of the relationship with Samsara, and it has helped with costs as incidents have fallen."

Pioneering AI-powered recovery calculations

As the first company in their sector to implement Samsara's advanced technology, Egertons is collaborating with Samsara to develop industry-specific Connected Workflows that address the unique demands of vehicle recovery operations.

The AI-powered forms analyse accident scene photographs to identify hazards like leaking fluids, overhead power lines, and hazardous material symbols, while automatically determining required PPE. "You can't think of everything, whereas the system does that whole holistic assessment," notes Leese.

Critically, the forms include automated calculations for complex recovery scenarios. Recovery operations require precise mathematical calculations including rolling resistance, damage resistance, and gradient resistance to determine safe load limits and required equipment. "There's a lot of mathematical calculations that go into recovery operations. To put in a few simple numbers and have the form generate accurate calculations in real-time is crucial for legal protection," said Leese.

These industry-first AI capabilities help recovery teams make safe decisions in high-pressure situations while ensuring compliance with Institute of Vehicle Recovery standards and providing legal protection should incidents occur in court.

Reducing costs through greater efficiency

Beyond safety improvements, Egertons uses Samsara to drive significant operational efficiencies. Automatic integration with TruTac for tachograph data has eliminated manual compliance processes, saving an estimated 73.5 hours monthly—37.5 hours on vehicle downloads and 36 hours on driver card processing.

Additionally, a complete view of fuel management has revealed substantial waste. "We found we were wasting up to £5,700 a month on vehicles left running," said Leese. “By monitoring idling time and putting in place corrective measures, we can cut those unnecessary fuel expenses.”

Comprehensive insights have helped to identify instances of fuel theft as well, particularly in smaller 3.5-tonne vehicles. By uploading fuel transactions and comparing them with Samsara's fuel level data, Egertons can spot discrepancies that indicate potential theft. 

Aside from fuel management, vehicle maintenance has become more proactive with Samsara's diagnostic capabilities. "We're trialing maintenance alerts at one of our depots—it’s all set up to go straight to the fleet manager, to see fault codes, what is going on diagnostically before it hits PMI time," said Leese. "Compliance wise, red warning lights should not be going on, I can then check in and see what's the plan."

The financial potential from preventing breakdowns alone is substantial. A standard recovery can cost from £458 for a simple pick and shift, and up to £7,684 for more complex scenarios involving laden vehicles. By minimising these instances, Egertons is expecting to make considerable cost savings moving forward. 

Growing in safety and size

The combination of technology and cultural change has delivered measurable improvements as the company continues to expand. The 141% safety score improvement has been achieved while managing 71% fleet growth from 88 to 150 drivers. And over 60% of drivers initially had zero safety scores, but average scores improved from 33% in August 2024 to 80% by April 2025. Insurance costs have also stabilised despite this expansion and the inherent risks of recovery operations.

By sharing data with Marsh through an API integration, Egertons continues to demonstrate their commitment to risk mitigation. "We have regular meetings to discuss ongoing claims," said Leese. "We got the insurance renewal because of the relationship with Samsara, and it has helped with costs as incidents have fallen significantly."

The company maintains consistently low crash rates (0-2 per month) despite high-risk operations and significant fleet expansion, while fuel theft prevention and maintenance optimisation continue delivering cost savings month after month. 

Leading industry transformation

Egertons is actively driving industry adoption by showcasing their integration at the Professional Recovery Tow Show and will present at Fleet & Mobility Live 2025 in October, advocating for advanced telematics adoption throughout the vehicle recovery sector.

Their pioneering work with AI-powered recovery calculations is setting new industry standards for safety and compliance, while their success demonstrates how proper technology implementation can transform even the most challenging high-risk operations.