CEC announced today that Tropical Surveillance has implemented the i-Sight Investigation Software to more effectively manage insurance fraud investigations.

Tropical Surveillance & Investigations is one of Florida's leading insurance defense investigation agencies. Specializing in worker's compensation fraud, insurance-related investigations and general liability cases, the company employs only seasoned and highly skilled insurance defense investigators.

Recently, Tropical Surveillance set out to find a case management system that could improve the agency's ability to record, track and analyze investigations from beginning to end. The firm's requirements were clear: the system had to be extremely secure and highly reliable, yet also simple to deploy and easy to use. It had to be capable of tracking, organizing and analyzing a rapidly expanding volume of cases and associated pieces of evidence. And it had to simplify the task of preparing reports on completed investigations.

Fortunately, Tropical Surveillance & Investigations found exactly what it wanted. The solution: i-Sight Investigation Software, the world's most customizable software for tracking investigations, managing evidence and reporting on results.

The Challenge

Based in Tampa, Fla., Tropical Surveillance & Investigations has experienced substantial client drive growth since its inception. In 2006, the agency handled a multitude of cases, ranging from simple background checks to complex insurance fraud investigations involving covert surveillance, extensive interviews with witnesses and large quantities of evidence. This year, the firm's growth projections are well over seventy percent.

"I used to run a very large company in Tampa, so I knew how important it was to have a high-quality case management system," says J.C. Dominguez, director and co-owner of Tropical Surveillance. "I started looking around and talking to competitors to find out what kind of software they were using to manage their caseloads. It turned out that many of them relied on homegrown systems that were running on internal servers. Of course, that meant they also needed big IT departments to administer everything and make sure it functioned smoothly."

Dominguez made up his mind to go in a different direction. "Having worked in a technology setting before, I really had no desire to manage my own servers and to develop my own IT staff. I also didn't want to have to worry about security. As far as I'm concerned, it makes a lot more sense to outsource those services to a company that already has expertise in security and case management systems. That way I can have the advantages of a great case management solution without all of the complications."

The Solution

Dominguez's search led him to i-Sight Investigation Software from Customer Expressions, the leader in customizable, web-based software for business processes that require case management. i-Sight is a proven software solution that is flexible, scalable and extremely secure, so it's ideal for storing sensitive evidence and documenting every step of an investigation. But unlike most other case management systems, i-Sight is administered and hosted remotely, using state-of-the-art security processes, automated backups and redundant high-availability servers. As a result, customers don't need to install special hardware or software. All of the benefits of the i-Sight solution can be accessed using a standard web browser.

After speaking with a Customer Expressions associate and viewing a demonstration, Dominguez decided that i-Sight Investigation Software would give his company the tools it needed to easily and effectively manage its growing caseload.

On January 18, 2007, the completed i-Sight system went live.

Looking back, Dominguez is impressed by how smoothly the implementation proceeded. He gives the developers at Customer Expressions full marks for accommodating his team's requests so as to ensure that the i-Sight system would precisely conform to the agency's existing business processes. "The people at Customer Expressions are great," Dominguez adds. "The implementation process they follow is very clear and logical, they give you realistic deadlines and their staff do an excellent job. I was very happy with the customer service."

Today, instead of tracking investigations manually, Dominguez and his staff record every case in a secure, centralized database. Initiating a case takes only seconds. After that, any member of the team can access the case and add new information. The system, Dominguez says, is "easy to use and straightforward". A single training session was sufficient to get his team of investigators up to speed on using i-Sight. Since then, other members of the staff have "picked it up without any training at all - that's how self-evident it is".

"One of the really nice things about i-Sight is that I and my partner can see at a glance how many new cases have been added, how many have been closed and who is working on what," Dominguez says. "The system provides us with automatic escalation notifications and alerts based on various parameters. For example, if a client tells us they need our report by a certain date, i-Sight makes sure that nothing is overlooked."

At the same time, i-Sight makes it easy for the investigators at Tropical Surveillance to report their findings to clients. "A lot of our clients will request investigations via email," Dominguez says. "i-Sight allows us to store the client's instructions in the database and then track each subsequent stage of the investigation. We can also send emails to the client directly from the system to make sure we're doing the right thing." In addition, i-Sight allows investigators to store attachments within the case record, including text documents, images and multimedia files, as well as links to electronic material stored on other systems. When the case is closed, it takes only a few keystrokes to generate a complete report of all activity associated with the investigation - a major savings of time and effort compared to the traditional method of reporting.

Currently, only Dominguez and his staff at Tropical Surveillance have access to the i-Sight system. In the future, however, he expects to provide access to many of his company's clients - including insurance companies and adjusters - so that they can conveniently check on the progress of a case or provide additional information that can assist the investigator.

How satisfied are the investigators at Tropical Surveillance with their new case management system? According to Dominguez, in the first 6 weeks of implementation our case load tripled without a single glitch - a clear indication that the system is helping his investigators manage their caseloads more efficiently. "My special investigative unit manager told me the other day that she couldn't live without i-Sight right now," he adds. "I think that says a lot."

About Customer Expressions
Based in Ottawa, Canada, Customer Expressions is a leading provider of web-based investigative case management solutions. Customer Expressions has gained an international reputation for best-in-class software to optimize the management of investigations. The privately held firm provides i-Sight, integrated case management software for investigation management, complaint handling, corrective and preventive action management (CAPA Management), compliance monitoring, and other business processes that require case management.